Group 5
PROBLEM
Deforestation has been getting more serious in recent years with increasing wildfires and illegal wood extraction. Sizes of forests around the globe have been decreasing every day. The Amazon Rainforest, as the largest rainforest, also faces the threat of deforestation. Being the “lung of the earth”, the Amazon rainforest plays a critical role in our fight against climate change. There are a lot of negative impacts of deforestation, including exaggerating the greenhouse effect, damaging ecosystems and biodiversity, soil erosion and more. Up to date, 17% of the Amazon rainforest has been found deforested, and something has to be done to remedy the exploitation of rainforests.While the Brazilian government plans to eliminate deforestation in the Amazon rainforest by 2030 through stricter law enforcement, the effectiveness is still unknown. In fact, deforestation is inevitable for human developments, and we believe that it is not a problem as long as it is sustainable. By introducing the Smart Forest Initiative, the Amazon rainforest can become a sustainable forest which would further eliminate the level of harm caused to the forest. Sustainable forestry is the practice of managing forests to meet current needs and desires of society for forest resources without compromising the availability of these for future generations.
OBJECTIVE
By introducing the Smart Forest initiative, we aim to obtain real-time holistic data of the forest for better management of sustainable forestry. Deforestation has been inevitable in human civilization. However, we need to make sure the scarce resources of the forests are sustainable for our future generations to uphold intergenerational equity. It is hoped that the availability of timely, precise and frequent measurementsenabled by technologies, can empower us to tackle old problems.
With the Smart Forest initiative, we may put a step forward in preventing wildfires and promoting ecosystem balance. Biodiversity is critical for a balanced ecosystem. That is, to balance the developmental needs of forests, mankind, economics and the sustainability of our planet Earth. If the forest fails to hold the ecosystem balance and is no longer sustainable due to unregulated large-scale deforestation, we, human-beings, will eventually suffer the costs.
It is essential to gather data of the forest via the IoTrees (Internet of Trees) in the forest for making informed forest management decisions with the help of technologies like tokenization regardless of constraints from weather conditions. Technologies can keep us posted with all the things happening in forests.
Ultimately, promoting Smart Forest management to the world enables countries (including but not limited to public + private enterprises in them) to make use of emerging technologies to tackle issues in tree management, such as preventing wildfires, halting illegal logging, monitoring dangerous trees. Or simply, providing a better way to manage trees with tolerable cost-effectiveness.
SOLUTION
Smart Forest– 1. LiDAR(Lighting Detection and Ranging System), 2. Smart Forest DAO(Decentralized Autonomous Organization), 3. Tradable bio-digital asset
- LiDAR
Deforestation is challenging to prevent due to the vast expanse of the rain forest, requiring significant manpower for government monitoring. The Lighting Detection and Ranging System operates like a bat, emitting lasers and collecting reflections to monitor the real-time forest situation. These reflections generate a substantial amount of data, aiding forest officials in creating real-time images of the forest’s status. In the event of illegal logging or wildfires, officials can use these images to gather information and set up deforestation alerts and hotlines for prompt enforcement response. Additionally, in certain villages where logging activities are present due to their lifestyle, the system helps define boundaries between forest areas and villages, preventing disputes. The system also collects and analyzes data on illegal industries, such as logger’s habits and logging trends, to formulate anti-deforestation policies. Moreover, preventing forest fires is crucial for forest protection, and the system checks conditions like humidity and temperature. For example, if the forests are too dry, the government can implement policies to increase humidity, reducing the risk of fires.
- Smart Forest DAO
“Tree that owns itself”-A DAO can be created to promote greater involvement in sustainable forestry.
A smart contract would be used to issue Debt tokens. As soon as enough funds have been raised the community members can initiate land registration and other legal processes. Creditors will be able to withdraw their money plus the interest earned via a redemption process.
The smart forest creates a scenario whereby the forest utilizes itself to accumulate capital and eventually owning itself, Satellite image processing algorithm can help to maintain the balance and sustain profits from the smart forest ecosystem. the program can determine how much wood (limited within a pre-fixed range e.g. 5-8%) to sell without overly diminishing the tree population.
The contract coupled with some off-chain computation can analyze the sales data, soil information and ascertain the most profitable trees to grow, and therefore sell and grow these trees till the repayment is complete. The contract can optimize itself from cycle to cycle. Market prices for the particular wood types can be queried through commodity price market and the smart contract can determine the best pockets of the forest to log allowing the DAO to maximize the returns for that cycle, with different stakeholders such as technical engineers, and businesses that deal with both forests and non-forests (such as harvesting businesses, tourism groups, and environmental guides).
The DAO network has created new opportunities wherein all actions will be directed toward the preservation of forest, Once the debt is cleared, the original creditors hold no more tokens, thus the forest is the sole shareholder of its economic unit. The smart forest, in economic terms, controls itself.
Blockchain technology and smart contracts enable nonhuman participants to administer & utilize capital and thus, claim the right to property.
- Tradable bio-digital asset
Once the information about the forest is digitized, it allows an alternate capital source from blockchains. Since the forest is tokenized and they are tradable on financial markets, as in other traditional financial products, it provides incentives for the indigenous population to preserve the forest rather than deforest it for commercial purposes. European Forest Union, a project in conception and put forward by the World Economic Forum, seeks to digitize the EU’s 182 million hectares of forest. The data collected can be viewed by individual forest owners, and only with their permission can the EU officials get access to their data. The project which seeks to tokenize all forests in Europe is in line with the Union’s aspiration of making the EU climate-neutral by 2050. This project represents a leap towards the goal as it broadens the range of entities that could participate in forest preservation. As the token represents “digital twins” of the forest, they are tradable on financial markets. EU’s 447 million citizens will be able to invest in forests through blockchain and decide which pieces of forest they would want to be involved in. This mechanism streamlines the current way of financing forest preservation, which previously relied on Non-profit organizations or institutional investors. With the introduction of blockchain into the scene, it is reasonable to expect the acquisition of forest land would become fragmented. However, retail investors and environment enthusiasts could now bypass non-profits and lower the administrative cost involved, which would improve participatory rights among EU citizens.
Digitization of the forest also improves transparency. Since information on the blockchain is immutable, corruption is likely to lessen in countries with weak law enforcement capabilities. Brazil’s state-run technology company Serpro launched a blockchain platform that is dedicated to solving the country’s corruption problem in rain forest preservation. The system helps with identifying ownership of land, which was previously absent in the country. Since the blockchain system provides credible and trusted records, concerns about land being appropriated by other entities through bribery were alleviated.
REFERENCES
Bartoszek, L. (2021). ‘Blockchain can protect our trees. Here’s how’. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/03/blockchain-can-protect-our-trees-here-s-how/
Bologna, M., & Aquino, G. (2020). Deforestation and world population sustainability: a quantitative analysis. Scientific Reports, 10(1), 7631–7631. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-63657-6
Gabrys, J. (2020). Smart forests and data practices: From the Internet of Trees to planetary governance. Big Data & Society, 7(1), 205395172090487-. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951720904871
Li, Y., Andersen, H.-E., & McGaughey, R. (2008). Comparison of Statistical Methods for Estimating Forest Biomass from Light Detection and Ranging Data. Western Journal of Applied Forestry, 23(4), 223–231. https://doi.org/10.1093/wjaf/23.4.223
Mendes, K. (2018)., ‘Can Blockchain save the Amazon in corruption-mired Brazil?’. Reuter.
