The Cardano Foundation – a non-profit organization leading the development of Cardano – has reached its first step towards land restoration in Kenya. He has successfully planted over a million trees, each of which will be recorded on the Cardano blockchain.
Trees for TREE token
Cardano Foundation CEO Frederik Gregaard announced the achievement on Sunday. He said that the foundation is attempting to position the blockchain as “a leader” in efforts to address climate change, and ultimately as a force for good.
“#CardanoForest will support land restoration and local ecosystem development activities in Mombasa, Kenya,” he explained. “All trees planted will be recorded on the Cardano blockchain for increased transparency and will serve as public evidence of land restoration activities.”
The foundation is conducting its tree-planting endeavor in partnership with Veritree, which uses blockchain technology to record data on its nature restoration efforts.
The organization plants a tree every time Cardano users exchange an ADA token for a TREE token. These tokens can then be exchanged for Digital Tree NFTs, the rarity of which depends on the ADA cost of the initial token. Gregaard calls the Cardano Forest project “the MVP to show how reporting on SDGs can be transparent with blockchain technology.”
Transactional data shows that one wallet exchanged as many as 100 000 ADA for an equivalent number of TREE tokens, hence planting 100 000 trees. That’s over $115 000 at the time of writing.
Cardano and the climate
Cardano attempts to distinguish itself from other blockchains by pursuing an eco-friendly narrative, unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum. These last two blockchains use a proof-of-work consensus mechanism, which forces computers on the planet – aka “miners” – to spend considerable energy securing their networks. It has become a controversial ethical issue within some communities.
By contrast, Cardano uses a “proof-of-stake” mechanism, which requires only a small fraction of Bitcoin’s energy to provide security – though there are other tradeoffs.
Last May, Elon Musk announced that Tesla would stop accepting Bitcoin due to energy consumption issues. Soon after, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson argued that Tesla should use ADA as a fuel-efficient replacement.
