Gaiachain

Project Name

Gaiachain

Country

UK

Project's Website
https://gaiachain.io
Overview

Enables Community Driven Development supporting the Women's association to focus on sustainable charcoal production. Holding government-issued title to help restore the highly degraded Forest in Ivory Coast; the Women association implements Agro-forestry techniques to produce climate-positive charcoal resulting in a net increase in forest cover.

SDGs
SDG 10: Reducing Inequality
SDG 5: Gender Equality
SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production
SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
Category

Community Driven Development

Targeted Impact

Local Women Association Malabi, Ivory Coast

Stage

Ides/Concept - no validation yet

Registered Entity

Yes

No

Impact Areas

Community Driven Development. Our local partner, Malebi, is women's association focusing on sustainable charcoal production. They hold a government-issued title to help restore the highly degraded Ahua Classified Forest in Ivory Coast. Malebi employs agro-forestry techniques to produce climate-positive charcoal resulting in a net increase in forest cover. Furthermore, Malebi's charcoal business benefits an estimated 200 local families through job creation and Malebi sponsored community development programmes. Charcoal production is one of the largest drivers of deforestation in Ivory Coast and demand is driven partially by the EU market - Ivory Coast exported over 3 thousand tons of charcoal primarily to the EU in 2017 according to FAO statistics. Malebi's mission is to convert the harmful charcoal industry into a driver of environmental restoration and community development. Gaiachain aims to help Malebi achieve this goal with blockchain technologies.

Quantifiable Impact?

Malebi is managed by 14 women from rural villages around the classified forest. Malebi benefits an estimated 200 families living in or near the project area. So in the short term, the project will help bring positive impact to 200 rural families in Ivory Coast.

Problem - Gap

The overall problem the project will help solve is illegal and unsustainable charcoal production. The more specific problems are Malebi's inability to: 1) differentiate its charcoal from illegal and unsustainable charcoal; 2) maximize supply chain efficiency; and 3) prove climate-positive production. Regarding production differentiation, while the demand for 'green' charcoal on the domestic market is minimal, this is expected to change in the next 3-5 years due to the EU's Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) currently being negotiated in Ivory Coast. The VPA will help give sustainable charcoal suppliers a market edge, but only if they can prove provenance, legality and sustainability. This project will prepare Malebi for VPA implementation. The project will also help Malebi attract EU buyers seeking sustainable charcoal thus opening up new market opportunities. Regarding supply chain inefficiencies, Malebi currently has no system to monitor their supply chain from the forest to the market. Based on preliminary monitoring, Malebi suspects that their legal charcoal is being mixed with illegal charcoal by transporters and traders to avoid paying bribes to authorities at checkpoints. Regarding climate positive production, Malebi would eventually like to take advantage the voluntary carbon market payments but in order to do so, they need to be able to demonstrate land use and forest cover change. The project will allow Malebi to use an existing free land cover change tool (Global Forest Watch) and establish a monitoring framework to demonstrate sustainability.

Use Case: Why use blockchain or other technologies?

Gaiachain will work with Malebi to develop a charcoal tracking tool built on Hyperledger Sawtooth. The tool will include information on provenance, legality and sustainability. By employing blockchain, rather than a centralized database, we'll help Malebi lower risk of fraud in their supply chain thus increasing their chances of accessing both EU charcoal markets and voluntary carbon markets. Currently, the main source of fraud is the mixing of Malebi with non-Malebi charcoal by transporters and traders. The system will help prevent this by storing information on the weight and real-time location of charcoal sacks on the distributed ledger. To help lower risk and make buyers feel secure in their purchase of sustainable charcoal, the system will establish a chain of custody from the tree to the market. Once a tree is harvested, a geo-tagged photo will transmit cryptographically secure location information directly to the blockchain. Through QR codes scanned via a mobile app, a user will be able to trace the exact location of each tree that makes up the bag of charcoal. Blockchain is also important for proving legality. Legality documents will be stored on the distributed ledger so users can be confident that the documents have not been tampered with since they were uploaded. Users will also be able to access the entire legality history of Malebi as documents will be permanently stored on the ledger. Worth mentioning is that we acknowledge the limitations of blockchain technology in reducing fraud in commodity tracking. This is why Gaiachain is developing a Blockchain+ approach that combines blockchain with principles of independent forest monitoring to help ensure that information entering the blockchain is correct. We'll work with Malebi to establish a monitoring system to help ensure data integrity. In the longer term, we aim to help Malebi to establish low-cost blockchain-based money-transfer system when they secure overseas buyers to minimize transaction costs. We would also like to explore ways to support Malebi is securing loans/grants through a blockchain based system such as Moeda. Guidance from B4H on these aspects would be much appreciated.

Team Members

Eulalie Guillaume (full-time) - Gaiachain co-founder. Gender and forest expert with an MA in Environmental Science and 3 years of experience working on gender and forestry projects in Africa with various organisations including FERN, World Resources Institute, Rights and Resources Initiative, and CIFOR. She also has a certificate in Blockchain for Business from Oxford. Brad Mulley (part time) - Gaiachain CEO and co-founder. Over 10 years of experience leading complex environmental programs in 6 African countries. Expert in independent forest monitoring, environmental policy and forest law enforcement. "Kacper Gazda (part time) - Gaiachain CTO and co-founder. Over 10 years of experience as a software engineer and recently certified in Hyperledger.

Application
Applicant's Name

Bradley Mulley, CEO and Co-founder

Protocol

Hyperledger

Open Source

Yes

No

Concept Definition

Empowering rural women in Ivory Coast to develop a sustainable charcoal business with blockchain technologies.

Support of B4H Goals

Community Driven Development. Our local partner, Malebi, is women's association focusing on sustainable charcoal production. They hold a government-issued title to help restore the highly degraded Ahua Classified Forest in Ivory Coast. Malebi employs agro-forestry techniques to produce climate-positive charcoal resulting in a net increase in forest cover. Furthermore, Malebi's charcoal business benefits an estimated 200 local families through job creation and Malebi sponsored community development programmes. Charcoal production is one of the largest drivers of deforestation in Ivory Coast and demand is driven partially by the EU market - Ivory Coast exported over 3 thousand tons of charcoal primarily to the EU in 2017 according to FAO statistics. Malebi's mission is to convert the harmful charcoal industry into a driver of environmental restoration and community development. Gaiachain aims to help Malebi achieve this goal with blockchain technologies.

External Funding If Any

Gaiachain and Malebi submitted a proposal to the FAO to support pilot activities in September 2018. On Jan 30 we received confirmation from FAO that the project has been selected. This is good news but funds are limited and will only allow us to develop an alpha version of the system. Additional support from B4H will help us develop the system further and explore functions that go beyond traceability such as blockchain based payments and micro-lending.

Development Stage and Next Steps

Gaiachain held 2 working sessions with Malebi in Ivory Coast to develop the project concept in 2018. We have also developed an application on Hyperledger Sawtooth with basic functionality such as QR code scanning to help demonstrate blockchain to Malebi and other partners. The application will also serve as a template to build custom applications.

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