coindesk.com
As little as $300: That’s the cost of buying one hectare of virgin rainforest in Paraguay, thereby protecting it from being cut down, bulldozed and turned into a cattle ranch.
Raising cryptocurrency donations to purchase forest from landowners, enlarging national parks and preventing deforestation is the goal of GainForest. The project combines blockchain-based smart contracts with satellite imagery, drone photography and data science, and has steadily grown since winning the United Nations COP 23 Hack4Climate contest back in 2017.
Most recently, GainForest began working with the Environmental Ministry of Paraguay (MADES) to protect thousands of hectares of forest in Paraguay’s Gran Chaco Americano, one of the most vulnerable areas to climate change, and one of the planet’s main carbon sinks.
It makes GainForest the first government-backed green crypto project, according to GainForest co-founder David Dao. The initial results will be presented at the UN COP27 in Egypt, he added.
