🌳 How social contracts and smart contracts can preserve our forest?

Sacred women-only forest in Papua and self governing forest in Germany. This is essay no. 4 out of 6 for 1729 Writers. Apply today at 1729.com.

Humans collaborate by contract. Either informally through culture and ritual, or formally through signed contract. In this article, I will explore how different types of contracts can help us to preserve our forests. 

🤴 Intro: forest and civilizations

We have a special bond with the forest. It dates back to our evolutionary roots, from the time we spent as hunters and gatherers in the wilderness.

If you have watched into the wild, you might have felt that magical freeing feeling when looking at endless lines of trees. 

Forest plays a huge role in shaping our society. According to the Geographist Raphael Zon, there are 3 types of civilization. Ones that were dominated by the forest (e.g., Inca in Peru, Germanic tribe), others that overcame the forest (e.g Charlemagne in Western Europe, American colonists), and those that dominated the forest (You and I). 

In the 21st century, our forests are chopped down or burned at a rapid rate. Mostly for farming such as cattle raising that cleared the Amazonia in South America. Or for palm oil plantations that threatened the livelihood of OrangUtan in Borneo (FYI OrangUtan translates to man of the forest, tragic).

Various ways were attempted to stop or slow down this negative trend. Either through punishment through government regulations. Or through incentives, such as the REDD+ carbon credit system.

But there are also other ways to preserve our dear forest. First is by looking at the past, how we use “Social contracts”. Second is by looking into the future, how to use “Smart contracts”.

👭 Social contracts: Sacred women-only forest 

At a Berlin film festival, I watched a documentary film about a traditional community in Papua. Papua is a dinosaur shaped island split between Indonesia in the west and Papua New Guinea in the east. 

The island is known for its vast virgin forest populated with rich indigenous culture. Huge parts are still inaccessible today, protected from the modern world, for better or worse.

There is a famous tale of Michael Rockefeller, who went missing in the wilderness of Papua back in the 1960s. Even wealth and power are no match to the almighty nature.

The film is titled Tonowityat. It tells a story about a mangrove forest on the coast of Jayapura, the capital of the West Papuan province. This mangrove forest is vital to the community's livelihood.

It is full of resources, such as clams that can be collected for food or sold in the traditional market. And also serve as a natural barrier to protect the semi-floating wooden houses from flood and high tide. 

What is unique about this forest is that only women are allowed to enter. Bearded men like myself are verboten.

This social contract has been practiced for hundreds of years. If any men enter the area, they will be taken to the traditional court and pay a fine in the form of polished stones. 

I’m not concluding that men have a higher tendency to destroy the environment, but it does remind me how a Womens’ gym looks much cleaner than a typical alpha male gym.

Though there might be a cultural explanation behind this rule. It is a genius way to preserve the mangrove forest by limiting access through social contracts.

🔥 Smart contracts: self governing forest and self burning NFT

Now let's look into the future. I came across the concept of using smart contracts to preserve the forest, from a book titled “Token Economy: How Blockchains and Smart Contracts Revolutionize the Economy” by Shermin Voshmgir (an awesome read for newcomers in Web3 such as myself).

Terra0, a self-governing forest, where a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain manages the logging and selling of trees from a forest in Germany. Drones and satellites monitor the growth of the forest and trigger events in the smart contract, like subcontracting agreements to log the forest and sell off the wood. This creates a fully efficient network written in code and minimizes the risks of corrupt human actors. 

Terra0 also launched a climate change driven NFT (Non-fungible tokens) named the Two Degrees. The NFT shows a 3D scanned area of a forest in South Germany. It is backed by a smart contract connected with the NASA database that monitors the annual rise of temperatures. 

If the global temperature rises above 2°C, the NFT will be automatically burned off existence. This is in line with the Climate Paris Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2°C. 

The NFT was sold in 2021 for more than $37K in an auction at Sotheby’s. So let’s do our best to slow down climate change and ensure that Two Degrees NFT can exist longer than the Mona Lisa.

Source: Terra0

🐯 Conclusion: Tale of the tigers

To conclude, I will refer back to a story from my late grandpa who lived in the highlands of North Bali (Indonesia). He once told me that tigers (Panthera tigris balica species) used to roam freely in the bamboo forest behind his house. Growing up watching The Jungle Book, I thought that it could only happen in the movies.

Sadly, the tigers were extinct back in the 1950s and the forest has been transformed into a tourist selfie spot. I would never be able to tell the same story to my future grandchildren.

However, I’m optimistic that we can build great stuff by combining social and smart contracts and preserving our forests to create a thriving responsible civilization.

Source: Wikipedia

Thanks for reading the article, go out there, take a forest bath, and enjoy the weather ☀️.

Yours truly, OrangUtan (man of the forest) with a laptop.