As an environmentally conscious organisation, and soon-to-be virtual landowner, RMRK will contribute to reforesting Portugal. We will also make cool NFTs to let everyone participate and to demonstrate the capabilities of RMRK's NFT 2.0 protocol.

Please read till the end to not miss out on key info.

Motivation

Forests are crucial resources for sustainable production and consumption, poverty alleviation, food security, biodiversity conservation, and climate change. The benefits of forests go well beyond forest boundaries and help maintain suitable conditions for life on Earth.

There are many reforestation initiatives in the world. They vary in size, goals, and methods. Choosing one initiative is not an easy task.

Some initiatives are too big for the implementation of NFTs. Others are too small. Not all initiatives are fully aligned with our goals. For example, we wanted to support initiatives that are not only planting the forests but also taking care of these forests for a long time. We wanted to help grow diverse, fire resistant ecosystems. Ecosystems which are as close as possible to the natural, ancient local forest ecosystems. Ecosystems which are also a food source to the people who live there. Finally, we wanted to be able to weave advanced, composable RMRK NFTs into the core of the initiative to give it more value and access to a larger number of contributors.

RMTerra

This is why we chose to support Reflorestação Mãe Terra, a reforesting initiative from Portugal. They are unique in a way that they plant forests on private, agricultural land, which suffered from wildfires and is now not in use.

There are thousands of hectares of such land in Portugal. Many of these areas were previously Eucalyptus plantations. This non-native species was introduced for agricultural and industrial reasons at large in the second half of the 20th century. Eucalyptus forests grew to cover 900.000 hectares and remained a fire hazard. They burn with unusual volatility. This proved to be catastrophic when wildfires hit Portugal in 2017.

When a land suffers from a devastating wildfire, it has to heal and regenerate for 3 to 4 years. After this time forests will start growing naturally. If the surrounding environment has a dominant non-native monoculture forest, it will grow this type of forest and the process will repeat. Now is the right time to stop this from happening and help Portugal increase the number of fire-resistant, biodiverse forests.

To achieve this, RMTerra enters into 25-50 year reforestation contracts with owners of private, deforested, burned or idle, agricultural land. RMTerra takes over the obligation to assess the land, design the structure of the forest, purchase the trees, plant them and educate the owners on how to care for the forest, with occasional inspections. On the other hand, owners get a forest that is not only protecting their land from fires and supporting the forest ecosystem, but also producing fruits. Planted forests require constant care but also provide health benefits to those who participate. This is why RMTerra brings together and educates land owners and local communities on how to care for forests.

Each of the trees planted is individually tracked. We know each tree's age, species, location, date of plantation, keep pictures and track its life. This is more work than what is usual in reforestation initiatives. But it makes sense because this land is very scarce and valuable. Portugal, just like the rest of Europe, has largely built or cultivated land, with not much land left for diverse forests. For us in RMRK this presented a nice challenge and opportunity.

Tokenising trees

NFTs are, in essence, about creating and tracking unique items. On top of that, RMRK works towards a future where uniqueness is not a simple function of the number of identical items available. RMRK NFTs can be truly unique and have changeable properties and abilities. It seems only natural (sorry for the pun) that we take unique items from the real world and properly represent them in a virtual world.

Forest represented as NFTs present many opportunities. Landowners can share the benefits and burdens of forest ownership with the internet community. People on the internet who don’t have land can help plant and maintain real trees. Real tree owners can pick fruits, and virtual tree owners can pick virtual fruits.

A virtual tree is created if a real tree grows from a planted sapling. If a tree dies in real life, it also dies in virtual life. Death of a virtual tree is marked by a special RMRK resource. More about that below.

In a RMRK powered metaverses, these trees can have a special purpose and value. This tree can produce virtual fruits, oxygen, reduce temperature etc. Now, we can’t promise any of this will actually happen, but the fact that it is possible is already a pretty big deal.

Art by Masholand

Art for the project is done by amazing Georgian artist Masholand. She gave our trees a whimsical, simplistic, hand-drawn visual representation that looks absolutely beautiful.

Each artwork has a unique combination of parts (ground, trunk, crown, decoration, background and sky) and colors.

Sale

We are selling unrevealed seed pouches that will turn into trees later.

Trees are planted in monthly batches of 330 from December 2021 until April 2022 and from October 2022 until December 2022. More than 1300 trees are already happily planted over the last 4 months, and another 330 will be planted in April. The rest will be planted in the next planting season starting in October.

Starting with March, we will be selling in identical batches. Only the trees that were already planted by the time of sale will be sold. The first batch will include trees that were planted in December 2021. In total we will sell more than 2600 trees over until the end of the year.

The sale will start with Dutch auction on Singular that will last for 3 days. After that, the price stays the same until all NFTs are sold. The starting price on auction will be 1 KSM, and final price will be 0.2 KSM per NFT.

NOTE: Due to there being several types of Dutch auctions, we would like to clarify that the type of Dutch auction used in this sale is one that lowers an item's price until sold. No other conditions or caveats, price simply decreases until acceptable for a buyer. The primary purpose is bot-prevention.

Reveal

The tree is hidden within the pouch NFT you buy and will reveal approx. one month after the sale using Singular's revealable NFTs. This means that on reveal, you will get unique artwork by Masho and information about the real tree. This information includes species of the tree, geolocation, date of plantation, and other.

Trees are planted as seedlings. They are sensitive. The first month after plantation is the most critical for the survival of a tree, as one out of 10 doesn't make it. When a tree dies in infancy, it is akin to not germinating successfully out of your seed pouch. If this happens, instead of into a tree, the NFT will turn into a "Forest spirit".

Introducing Moonglade - Reforestation NFTs