A distributed ledger for ecology built on top of the cosmos-sdk.
See Getting Started for instructions how to install and run the blockchain.
Regen Ledger aims to provides the following core features:
- a database of ecological state and change of state claims that spans both on and off-chain data sources (Ecological State Database)
- mechanisms for automating the assessment of ecological state, making payments, and the issuance of tokens and credits (Compute Functions and Ecological Contracts)
- infrastructure for issuing ecologically-backed asset tokens and credits (Tokens and Credits)
This project is under heavy development and as result the above features are implemented to varying degrees of completeness.
One of the core functionalities of Regen Ledger is providing a structured database of claims regarding ecological state and change of state. A claim is made up of a few very basic pieces of information:
- the geo-polygon of the portion of the Earth being referred to,
- what is being claimed about this geographical region,
- who is making the claim, and
- any supporting evidence the claimant would like to associate with their claim
The actual data for claims can be stored on or off the Regen Ledger blockchain. In order to make claim data publicly available to the whole world, it can be stored directly on the blockchain. In order to keep some or all of the data private, it can be stored off-chain but "tracked" on-chain by providing a cryptographic hash and URL, as well as possibly some metadata about the claim.
The facilities for storing data on-chain and tracking data off-chain are managed by Regen Leder's data and geo modules. In order to make it easy to write software that can automatically reason about claim data, the schemas for all such data must be registered with Regen Ledger's schema module and all submitted data must conform to these schemas. The actually signing of claims is managed by the claim module.
Regen Ledger aims to provide built-in support for indexing claim data in both the PostgreSQL/PostGIS database and the Apache Jena RDF data store so that this data can be queried easily and used in compute functions and contracts.
Regen Ledger aims to provide a framework for executing compute functions that take as input Regen Ledger's ecological state database as well as other "well-known" public data sources, such as satellite imagery from NASA and ESA. This framework will define:
- how compute functions can uniformly access private, off-chain data given appropriate permissions
- how compute functions should be written and executed to ensure that results are reproducible
- how computers that are executing compute functions (called oracles) should interact with Regen Ledger in order to have results stored back into the ecological state database
This functionality will be managed by the oracle module and described in more detail there.
Ecological contracts in Regen Ledger are modelled as state machines that effectively "observe" the ecological state database for certain conditions and which execute certain actions when those conditions are met. For instance, a contract could be written to make a payment to a farmer at the end of the year if the ecological state database included claims from a reputable source that the farmer had used certain practices like cover cropping. Or a contract could be setup as effectively a "land trust" for a forest that accumulates credits while it remains forested but has them slashed whenever a deforestation event is tracked in the ecological state database.
The functionality for ecological contracts will be managed by the contract module.
In addition to allowing for payments using existing tokens, Regen Ledger will allow for the creation of custom ecosystem tokens and credits whose issuance can be controlled directly by ecological contracts.
See https://github.com/regen-network/testnets.
And of course there is this, from Mary Oliver, who recently passed away.
We love you!
I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.
from Sleeping In The Forest by Mary Oliver
© Mary Oliver