Mobilising, harmonising and incentivising forest biodiversity and environmental monitoring data through Web 3.0 technology (Forest-Web 3.0). (Forest-Web 3.0)

There is a growing narrative amongst the ecological community that widespread open and FAIR data mandates ought to come long after the development and widespread adoption of cyberinfrastructures that incentivize actionable sharing. In ecology, extant infrastructures have coevolved alongside fields excellent at expanding the landscape of big data acquisition. Arguably, they offer better technological solutions for mobilising 'born digital' data (e.g. earth observation and citizen science), then they do for low velocity, resource intensive ecological and environmental ground truth data inherently tied to sociological and cultural constraints limiting sharing. Such barriers can be summarised as trust, transparency and control, fundamental properties on which novel technologies such as blockchains have been prefiguratively designed. This nascent distributed ledger technology (DLT) is fundamental to emerging Web 3.0 technologies (i.e. the third iteration of the world wide web - interconnecting data through decentralised, permissionless and trustless digital protocols). It has provided a platform for heightened recognition of decentralised digital networks among an increasingly centralised World, enabling peer-peer decentralised financial ecosystems and pioneering novel regenerative finance systems to drive systematic, sustainable, and positive change among communities and natural environments. With a focus on the forest biome, Forest-Web.3.0 showcases the utility and uptake potential of Web-3.0 technologies in ecology on two fronts. In accordance with the call theme "Innovation and harmonisation of methods and tools for collection and management of biodiversity monitoring data" we first aim for a new paradigm in ecological data curation, governance and sharing, leveraging blockchain architecture to incentivise active data stewardship and facilitate widespread mobilisation of extant low-velocity biodiversity and environmental data. Second, and in accordance with the call theme "Making use of available biodiversity monitoring data" we utilise mobilised data resources in concert with earth observation data to validate and improve upon the ecological realism of forest digital twin models, designed to capture ecosystem integrity and used to evidence and execute nature-based economies within a Web-3.0 regenerative finance ecosystem. Through these enhanced digital twin models and in concert with the exponentially growing voluntary biodiversity market we will evidence to a trans-national network of stakeholders (forest land-owners) economic incentives for preserving high-integrity forests. The ambition here is to generate trans-national inertia in understanding and favouring revenues tied to resource preservation (proforestation), mobilise new actors towards safeguarding and stewarding biodiversity, and ultimately drive systematic and sustainable commitments to nature protection.

Keywords:BIODIVERSITY

Disciplines:Community ecology

Project type:Collaboration project