Please describe your proposed solution.
We propose to combine art, culture and technology to present to the world a Cardano powered solution that helps grassroots communities achieve social and environmental justice.
At Streets of ADA we have been developing Art as Activism pieces for over a year now, exploring the use case application of blockchain, NFTs, and metadata capabilties with regards to closing the sustainability finance gap. We have been working with other impact driven changemakers in the Cardano ecosystem and impact web3 world to elaborate in creating new standards around impact ‘credits’, meeting the challenge around impact data measurements and collection, incentives, transparency and the need to tackle greenwashing and corruption.
We seek to launch an art as activism fundraising collection, in collaboration with local NGOs, and multisectoral stakeholders in the Philippines and diaspora, to help grow the Cardano community, and build bridges with enabled, empowered and equipped grassroot communities on the frontlines of fighting for justice.
PNNI Paraenforcers (from left to right) Dado, Ipe and Tredez
<u>What’s at stake:</u>
12 million acres of rainforest are destroyed every year.
Threatening a million species with extinction.
Illegal logging is an ever-increasing global problem with devastating social, economic, and environmental consequences. The industry brings in around 152 billion USD annually, making it the world's “most lucrative environmental crime”, and represents up to 90% of timber harvest in some countries.
This may provide short term profits for numerous actors, ranging from the illegal loggers (those often looking for a way out of poverty), to the corporates operating without impunity or in the shadow networks, however, in the long term the price paid will impact everyone, whether through the loss of ecosystem services provided by the trees and their role in the local and global environment, as well as the knock on effects for livelihoods and security for those communities.
Government and NGO agencies are struggling to tackle these global supply chains, with its lack of transparency and means to authenticate that goods and products are 100% ethically sourced
<u>Context:</u>
We are focusing our feasibility study in the Philippines, Palawan, aka the “last ecological frontier. and one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist, land defender and activist. Like many forests in this region, it faces considerable threats — including illegal logging and wildlife poaching, conversion to agricultural land, mangrove loss and unsustainable mining.
We have been developing Streets of ADA Art as Activism pieces without funding for over a year now since 2022. We have successfully developed a number strategic partnerships to ensure the long term success of our impact project, local empowerment and the possibility for scaleability once we can demonstrate the proof of concept works.
Samsudin Brothers on a call when visiting the PNNI HQ in Palawan, with the PNNI team, and Attorney Bobby Chan
Palawan rainforest loses the equivalent of 7,700 football pitches a year due to human activity.
“Corruption can happen at every stage of the global supply chain of timber” - INTERPOL:
<https://www.interpol.int/Crimes/Environmental-crime/Forestry-crime>
We work to support changemakers on the ground before the illegal timber can enter a global supply chain.
“Communities in Palawan have been struggling for decades to protect their forests, oceans and mountains from plunder. A culture of impunity and fear – the Philippines is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for land defenders and journalists – has meant that the stories of these communities have rarely been told, if ever. As such, the people in Palawan defending their homelands welcomed me and our team. They were desperate for other people to know their fate, and hopeful that this would lead to some support for their struggles…Filming Kap Ruben’s funeral was the hardest, and as such the most powerful moment, of the process. Kap had spoken to us in the forests, telling us in a quiet voice that he was risking his life so that when his daughter grew up and had children, the big trees would still be there. To see his daughter a few months later wail as she collapsed over his coffin, beg him to come home, and then bury him, was devastating. I also knew that this moment had to be told in the film, to honour his courage, and to show the human impact of the logging industry.”
- Karl Malakunas, Director of Delikado
“If this illegal activity is not stopped, I think before my youngest daughter becomes a young adult and has a family of her own, all the big trees here will be gone.” - Kap Ruben Confiscation crusaders try to save Philippine paradise
Ruben never lived to see his youngest daughter grow up. A few months after the chainsaw confiscation, the father of 5 was shot dead for trying to seize some illegally cut wood.
Confiscation crusaders try to save Philippine paradise
<https://youtu.be/GUgoYLUWTYY?si=3HtxHiV35tcLbgq7>- Emmy nominated Environmental thriller 'Delikado' CNN interview
DELIKADO Director, Karl Malakunas, chat to PNNI’s Bobby Chan
Since Q4 2022, we began working voluntarily to support Palawan NGO Network Inc. (PNNI), creating art as activism pieces, and exploring the integration of blockchain and using NFTs, metadata and impact data to support their mission.
Art from Streets of ADA - A Samsudin Brothers Projek
Since then we have also been in discussions with Karl Malakunas - Director of Delikado, and have been receiving advice and support from Karl R. De Mesa, a longreads journalist and photographer who has reported on stories in the Philippines, Hong Kong, Myanmar, and Singapore. His photo essays have appeared on CNN Ph Life and The Likhaan Journal of Phil Lit. His non-fiction collections "Report from the Abyss" and "Radiant Void" were both shortlisted for the Philippine National Book Awards for journalism and non-fiction. He makes music as Dark Horse (Ph) and is a certified Muay Thai instructor. http://linktr.ee/karlrdemesasa](http://linktr.ee/karlrdemesa)
By developing proof of impact art as activism pieces, inspired by South East Asian and Filipino cultural heritage, and martial arts, we seek support to further explore the use case of Cardano technology to help close the sustainability finance gap.
To support impact funding, incentivising impact data collection and tracking, on chain identities associated with positive measurable socio-environmental impact, led by grassroots communities in developing countries.
This aligns with the original mission of Cardano as stated by founder of Cardano, Charles Hoskinson in his “Why Cardano” essay:
“In these places, the power to bundle a payment system, property rights, identity, credit and risk protection into a single application running on a cell phone is not just useful, it is life changing. The reason we are building Cardano is that we feel we have a legitimate shot at delivering — or at least advancing — this vision for the developing world.”
<https://why.cardano.org/en/introduction/what-it-the-point-of-all-of-it/>
<u>Why Palawan, the Philippines?</u>
Palawan is often called the Philippines’ last ecological frontier, home to most of the nation’s remaining forests, its waters are renowned as a global biological hotspot.
With weak or corrupt authorities often unwilling to take on the fight, the Palawan NGO Network Inc (PNNI) seeks to fill the void.
As cash-strapped environmentalists they believe traditional campaigning to save the island’s resources can do little to stop the corruption.
They use a little-known citizen’s arrest law, plus the support of local communities, to confiscate chainsaws, mining drills, cyanide fishing gear and any other equipment used to destroy Palawan’s environment.
The para-enforcers have confiscated more than 800 chainsaws since PNNI was established over three decades ago, according to its founder and leader, environmental lawyer Bobby Chan.
Missions can last days, and weeks at a time, using intel to locate the chainsaws carrying out the illegal logging operations and to successfully seize the chainsaw and stop the operation.
<u>Feasibility Case Study: Palawan, The Philippines</u>
Our initial focus is to work with on the ground NGO partners in Palawan.
The Palawan NGO Network Inc. (PNNI) was organized in 1991, and is made up of multiple NGOs and People’s Organizations in Palawan, the Philippines.
They focus on:
- ADVOCACY
- Includes Indigenous Peoples Rights, Anti-Mining, Anti-Coal Fired Power Plant
- MEMBERSHIP SERVICES
- Entail linkage and sourcing of funds to the members.
- ENFORCEMENT
- On Illegal logging, Illegal Fishing, and Wildlife Poaching. PNNI Para- Enforcers uses the concept of Citizens Arrest, as provided in the Philippine Constitution.
- SOCIAL ENTERPRISE
- PNNI buys and sells products from the communities, includes honey, cashews, baskets. Also offers micro-financing.
- YOUTH
- Trains and mentor the youth in Palawan who will someday take over in development work.
With the support of this catalyst proposal, Streets of ADA can explore the feasibility of having on the ground impact accelerated, with Cardano blockchain-powered fundraising and community support.
<u>Collaboration for greater impact using technology</u>
Given the latest technological advancements, we aim to help the land defenders and connect the dots with the tools that can help the changemakers on the ground to help protect people and planet.
One example integration we are exploring is with Rainforest Connection (RFCx) who have developed a suite of tools, including an AI tool called Arbimon. It uses inexpensive recorders in the trees.
Rainforest Connection, Arbimon, & Google.org - Using sounds and AI to protect our planet
We seek to further connect the dots across the Philippines and between other changemakers in the movement, from Rainforest Connection, the Palawan NGO Network Inc (PNNI), and other land defenders in Palawan, the Philippines, also known as the last ecological frontier.
We will be learning from another Fund 10 Project Catalys funded proposal, where we are carrying out similar work in another critical rainforest location, in West Sumatra, Indonesia, in partnership with Rimba Non Profit Organisation.
Additionally, we are in talks about exploring a collaboration with RFCx, and looking at integrating real-time audio streaming and RFCx's extensive audio library of detected animal sounds into the Proof of Impact NFT offering, as well as their innovative AI solution that’s supported by Google.
https://youtu.be/2-ZQes55LCo?si=nscnQ_QrvUcrhS6kRainforest Connection(RFCx) is a non-profit organization that believes that a focus on stopping illegal logging can act as an effective barrier to wholesale deforestation and such a focus is likely the cheapest way to fight against global warming and biodiversity loss.
The RFCx monitoring system gives its partners the opportunity to protect key rainforest areas and respond to real-timealerts, while sharing large amounts of ecosystem data that help negotiate increased protections in these areas. In some cases, protecting the perimeter of a rainforest can actually mean protecting everything behind it – saving rainforests is the key to saving our planet.
RFCx’s technology now alerts rangers of chainsaw activity to ensure their patrols are more effective and efficient in current and future logging events.
Large scale deforestation contributes to 17% of all carbon emissions globally, leading to species extinction, causing droughts, affecting upwards of twenty million people, totaling from 2-5 trillion USD in economic loss annually. (https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00XWJ8.pdf)
Rainforest Connection (RFCx): Old smartphones to catch illegal logging- starting in 2013, 10 years later RFCx have evolved from using old smartphones.
We wish to explore how we can create greater impact together, and help fundraising to support the adoption of these critical tools that can help enable the prevention of further illegal logging, and protect the last ecological frontier in the Philippines.
<https://www.bataris.org.ph/petitions/let-s-save-palawan-s-forests>