My 12 seasons as an industrial tree planter

I planted over a million trees and I am convinced we need a forestDAO.

Throughout my experience in forestry, I witnessed the scale at which industrial and governmental forces destroy ecosystems. I have seen the wreck left after the passage of their machines.

I observed rich and diverse ecosystems get reduced to rotting left-over harvest debris. The forests I fabricated will most likely be destroyed in the same way. After planting more than a million trees in over a decade, I have witnessed the industry’s capacity for destruction while experiencing the collective’s potential for regeneration.

The loss is immense and hardly graspable at the human scale. We know forests and trees play an essential role in our sustainable future. We can protect ecosystems while still harvesting forests in a durable way. Better harvesting practices will not only sequester carbon, they will foster biodiversity.

Developing ecological praxis; a forest generating culture

As I fabricated future forests, I developed an experimental practice interested in systems, data and climate perceptualization. I recorded environmental data and built interfaces with climate archives in a multitude of art contexts. The environment was not only a source of inspiration but the material with which I created aesthetic and sensory experiences.

Over the years, I discovered other artists working within the field of what some would call ecological art. Artists that augmented forests, planted trees, cleaned rivers, blocked pipelines and in countless ways explored new ecological possibilities and fostered channels for positive environmental interactions.

Such investigations into socio-ecological systems become the forestDAO’s playground. Within this context of the forest as a laboratory for artistic experimentation, the potential for ecological, economical and philosophical endeavors are allowed to flourish.

the forestDAO and web3 as interface with nature

Ecosystem services consist of the many ways humans benefit from natural environments and healthy ecosystems. The forestDAO initiates interactions that will sustain, protect and enhance natural and cultural ecosystem services.

A forested site holds the potential for carbon capture, biodiversity protection, cultural production, community support, landscape regeneration and conservation. The forestDAO uses Web3 as an interface with nature in order to generate interactions with the land and allow for direct experimentation with our world.

Beyond the ecosystem benefits, the land becomes the site for artist residencies, DAO meet-ups, research and retreats. The forestDAO is an exercise in decentralized forest governance as a framework for the future of natural commons.

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