For millennia, humans have dominated the earth, and dominated species, “domesticating” plants and animals, and claimed ownership to nature and its resources.
As the consequences of our human centricity impact the earth, what if it is time for non-humans to gain autonomy, and even rights, on par with humans?
Our project Plantiverse is an exploration of rights for plants, by giving them autonomy, building on the Rights of Nature movement’s gains of independent legal standing for forests and species. We wanted to see if we could get operational, financial, and even civil rights for non-human living beings.
Watch VIDEO: Plantiverse Explained
We gave Herbie (a herb houseplant) a form of their own autonomy, letting them make certain decisions on their own. Sensors measure Herbie’s state; which are linked to decisions about mobility; so that Herbie, when in need of water or light, will go to the water source / light source.
As Herbie gained decision making power over mobility, we asked ourselves, can non-human beings have economic power? What if Herbie could deliver and sell their own herbs and leaves to people? And if Herbie can sell and “earn” money, could Herbie have a bank account? Could Herbie own things, vote, or even have planetary citizenship?
But how would that manifest in the real world?
These sensors give readings that are then paired with a particular output of an image, leave colours, for example, indicate water level and so on. The rendering, then, becomes a visualisation of physiological status of the plant itself, essentially a digital twin, or avatar, of the plant in real life. These visualisations, then were minted in the carbon neutral blockchain and sold as NFTs or NFTrees. The funds raised via the sales will be directed to sustainable causes.
The rendering, then, becomes a visualisation of physiological status of the plant itself, essentially a digital twin, or avatar, of the plant in real life.These visualisations, then were minted in the carbon neutral blockchain and sold as NFTs or NFTrees. The funds raised via the sales will be directed to sustainable causes.
This project is about using metaverse, NFT and digital twins as a mechanism for non-humans to gain equal rights so that we can truly establish a fully integrated and diverse approach to earth stewardship, an interspecies metaverse.
We think that this is just the beginning and one of possible self-governed equitable models for a true equitable ecosystem for our planet that is inclusive. Digital twins allow for non-human to have a presence, rights and even economic means in the metaverse that is immutable and traceable.
We are currently planning to create the world’s first plant-governed DAO so that plants themselves will have the ability to decide how the funds of these NFTrees should be spent. If the water level is low, then the funds will then go towards water focused initiatives, for example.
After this first iteration of NFTrees, we are now working on the 2nd generation of NFTrees where the trees are now generated in 3D and can be “planted” via geolocation in the place of your choice and can be viewed via our own augmented reality application of SOFT (Store of Future Things) app.
In our future pipeline, we are hoping to extend this project and place sensors in the forest in the same capacity to monitor forestry health and convert those as NFTrees as well. Other initiatives, such as placing sensors in the ocean to monitor ocean health, can then be turned into NFSeas with visualisations of reefs and corals that people can buy and funds can go towards blue initiatives, NFBees for bee health.
The expansion of the impact NFT could serve as a way to monitor our planetary health via digital twins, and to allow economic autonomy from plants and planetary accounting to be integrated into our economic model.
Our project is just in the very beginning stages of setting up the foundation of how this could be implemented.
Our unsustainable model of capitalism that is over-sourcing our natural resources need to be reinvented. It is time we rethink capitalism, and one of the ways we can level out the playing field is to give plants and other non-human species the same economic power and decision making capabilities that are to their benefits, not ours.
Interspecies economics might be a means to a more equitable planet, by incorporating all aspects of the complexity of planetary accounting into our consumption model in order to understand how to create a regenerative world. Plants and other living things have helped humans grow in number, power, and intelligence – but what have we done for them?
