What happens when you give nature stewards the coordination tools of web3?

GainForest.Earth is building the world's first community-owned data commons for biodiversity. We're tackling a fundamental coordination failure: only 1% of global biodiversity data comes from the world's largest rainforests, while decisions about their protection get made thousands of miles away by actors who've never set foot in these ecosystems.

This talk explores how we're using Ethereum's social primitives to flip the power structure. We've pioneered data councils where Indigenous and local communities self-host and govern their own biodiversity data, deciding who accesses it, how it's used, and what it's worth. Through Ecocertain.xyz, our on-chain marketplace, nature stewards connect directly with funders via verified impact certificates, cutting out the NGO intermediaries who typically capture most conservation funding. This work helped us become the first web3 project to win an XPRIZE.

GainForest proves that Ethereum's social layer can do more than coordinate DeFi. It can redistribute power in conservation, empower marginalized communities, and build participatory systems for planetary-scale challenges.