This article presents Regen Villages, a research exploration funded by Allo Capital that investigates pop-up microeconomies as a mechanism for cosmo-local commoning during global conferences. The experiment took place during Devconnect Buenos Aires (November 16–23, 2025) and explored how temporary, community-owned infrastructures—such as shared treasuries, commitment pools, and cultural coordination—can support trust-building between local and global actors. Using a combination of onchain data analysis and qualitative feedback analyzed through Reflexive Thematic Analysis, the study examines both material exchanges and affective outcomes such as emotional safety, belonging, and learning. Findings suggest that repeated, embodied experiences of commoning can generate cultural capital, facilitate non-extractive global–local collaboration, and offer an alternative to transactional conference dynamics. Regen Villages are proposed as a repeatable design pattern for cultivating cosmo-local communities of practice across geographies.

1. Introduction

This article presents a research exploration funded by Allo Capital titled Regen Villages: Pop-up Microeconomies for Event-Based Communities. The exploration began on August 24th, 2025, and culminated in a live experiment held during the Devconnect conference in Buenos Aires, between November 16th and 23rd, 2025.

The research explores whether Ethereum conferences can function as stages for cosmo-local commoning, enabling participants to collectively allocate resources, coordinate shared logistics, and build trust across local and global contexts. The guiding hypothesis of the experiment is:

If Ethereum conferences are used as stages for cosmo-local experiences and shared resource allocation, it is possible to improve the return on investment of participation while simultaneously building trust between global and local actors.

Rather than treating conferences as purely transactional or extractive events, Regen Villages propose a different mode of engagement: a flash experience of commoning, where participants temporarily co-create and steward shared resources, culture, and care infrastructures.

The Buenos Aires Regen Village served as a first case study to explore this hypothesis through lived practice, combining local provisioning, onchain coordination tools, and a deliberately crafted social atmosphere. While limited in scale and duration, the experiment offers insights into how temporary commons can seed longer-term cosmo-local relationships.

2. Conceptual Framework: Commoning & Cosmo-Localism

2.1 Commoning

Commoning is understood not as a static pool of shared resources, but as a process. Bollier and Helfrich (2015) define commoning as a collaborative practice through which diverse actors co-design and co-produce shared goods and services across scales. Emphasis is placed on relationships, governance, and cultural norms rather than ownership alone.

Within Regen Villages, commoning manifests through shared treasuries, collective provisioning of food and lodging, mutual aid, and the ritualized offering of goods and services into a shared pool.

2.2 Cosmo-Localism

Cosmo-localism is a framework articulated by Michel Bauwens in The Cosmo-Local Plan for Our Next Civilization (2025). It proposes an economic and cultural model that combines localized, regenerative production with globally shared knowledge commons and translocal coordination protocols.

Bauwens identifies three archetypal actors within cosmo-local systems:

• Local Initiators: Locally rooted individuals responding to place-based challenges through concrete initiatives.

• Nowheres: Highly mobile actors primarily oriented toward personal opportunity, often disconnected from local contexts.

• Everywheres: Nomadic actors who intentionally serve cosmo-local alliances, bringing translocal experience and capital while supporting local autonomy.

Regen Villages intentionally create spaces where Local Initiators and Everywheres can coordinate directly, while minimizing extractive dynamics associated with purely global participation.

3. Related Research: Trust, Repetition, and Cultural Capital

Research on commoning highlights the importance of repetition, trust, and shared experience. Feinberg et al. (2023), drawing on a ten-year agent-based modeling study grounded in Ostrom’s design principles, show that cultural capital emerges through recurring interactions that enable social learning and knowledge retention. Their work demonstrates how trust is not assumed but generated through practice.

Similarly, Colding and Barthel (2013) argue that solving ecosystem-related challenges requires cognitive resilience, built through repeated interaction between groups and their environments. These insights frame Regen Villages not as isolated events, but as iterative experiments whose value compounds over time.

4. Methodology

4.1 Research Approach

This study adopts an action research approach, combining direct participation, infrastructural experimentation, and post-event reflection. Data sources include onchain transaction data, participant observation, and qualitative feedback collected after the event.

4.2 Tools & Infrastructure

The Regen Village experiment utilized:

• A Safe multisig to coordinate shared funds

• Sarafu Commitment Pools for voucher-based exchange

• NFTs representing bedrooms and supporter contributions

• A Telegram group and shared cultural artifacts (memes, visuals)

4.3 Qualitative Analysis

Post-event participant feedback was analyzed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006), allowing themes to emerge inductively from participant narratives.

5. The Regen Village Experiment

5.1 Roles & Actors

The experiment was initiated by an Everywhere Nomad (Explorer) who partnered with previously known and referred Local Initiators to solve lodging, food provisioning, and cultural programming. Villagers included Airbnb residents, local contributors, and conference attendees.

5.2 Pre-Event Phase

In the three months prior to Devconnect, coordination activities included:

• Hosting office hours and group calls

• Creating a multisig and commitment pool

• Launching a fundraising campaign

• Issuing NFTs for bedrooms and supporters

• Coordinating local regenerative products and experiences

Weekly updates were shared publicly through Allo Capital's research forum.

5.3 Event Phase

The Village operated from a rented house within walking distance of the conference. Bedrooms were accessed via NFTs, and a shared pantry formed the material base of the commons. Activities included presentations at the Regen Hub, a communal dinner funded by the shared treasury, a bazaar of goods and services exchanged via vouchers, and deep-dive discussions on Revnets and budgeting tools.

5.4 Post-Event Phase

Post-event actions focused on analyzing quantitative metrics, collecting qualitative feedback, and convening follow-up conversations to explore future iterations.

6. Results

6.1 Quantitative Results

During the week, 36 vouchers were created in the Sarafu Bazaar Pool, representing goods such as books, food, wine, conversations, and the $VILLA token. Eleven onchain swaps occurred, alongside numerous offchain exchanges. The Telegram group grew to 97 members, and five participants chose to hold $VILLA after the event.

6.2 Qualitative Results

Qualitative analysis revealed nine thematic categories, including communication and onboarding, emotional safety, shared care, embodied learning of commons governance, serendipity, abundance, UX friction, AI as commons infrastructure, and desire for continuity. Collectively, these themes indicate that the Village functioned not only as an economic experiment, but as emotional and cultural infrastructure.

1st Category: Communication & Onboarding

Theme: Participants were enthusiastic but needed clearer pre-event framing.

• “I hadn’t really, to be honest, fully grasped what the concept was or that that was happening.”

• “I think some better communications before could have been good and I could have prepared for it a bit more.”

• “Getting communications out into the Devconnect crowd a bit more could have been interesting.”

Interpretation:

Future iterations should include clearer onboarding, visible presence inside Devconnect spaces, and more explicit framing.

2nd Category: Emotional Safety & Relief from Conference Pressure

Theme: The Village was experienced as a refuge from the intensity of Devconnect.

• “When I came to the Village, it was like, ‘Oh my God, this is what I was expecting in terms of a safe regen place.’”

• “When I say safe, I’m not talking about diversity, I mean safe as in ‘Here I can chill, here I don’t need to be in founder mode.’”

• “I only needed to be here with friends, with friendly faces.”

• “Devconnect was very stressful for me and the Village was the place where I could actually breathe.”

Interpretation:

The Village is functioning as emotional infrastructure. This appears to be one of its most valued emergent functions.

3rd Category: A Shared Field & Collective Care

Theme: Participants felt the space was co-created and transparent.

• “Everything was so transparent in terms of how much it costs and where the funds will be applied.”

• “It was a perfect example of how regens can organize themselves to share a space and have activities together.”

• “This wasn’t just a meetup but a community forming in real time.”

Interpretation:

Participants experienced the Village as an intentional, shared commons — not a hosted event.

4th Category: Experiencing Commons Governance in Practice

Theme: Participants learned by doing — “the penny dropped.”

• “It was the first time that I actually experienced a commitment pool in practice, which really made everything click for me.”

• “Compared to learning about it in theory, actually doing it in practice suddenly you kind of just get it a bit more.”

• “Being able to offer my oversupply into a community and trade it for things others had was a really cool mechanism.”

Interpretation:

This supports your hypothesis: commons governance becomes intelligible only through embodied participation.

5th Category: Serendipity, Atmosphere & the Value of Slowness

Theme: The Village enabled meaningful conversations and unpressured presence.

• “It was the kind of place where I could have meaningful conversations with people who are extremely good at what they do.”

• “It was not a popularity contest.”

• “I learned so much and talked with a lot of different people, and that was precious to me.”

• “It felt like the kind of place where serendipity happens naturally.”

Interpretation:

The Village created a field of slow time — rare in conference culture — which catalyzed deeper connection.

6th Category: Abundance, Generosity & Community Vibes

Theme: Participants felt a palpable sense of shared abundance.

• “There were a lot of vibes in terms of created abundance.”

• “I certainly felt good community, regen, village-y vibes going on with everyone.”

• “That kind of sharing happens naturally even without the tech, but the hope is that the tech can make it easier and more scalable.”

Interpretation:

The Village successfully fostered communal generosity and conviviality.

7th Category: Friction & UX Limitations in the Pool

Theme: Listing, discovering, and swapping items was still too difficult.

• “The most annoying thing is the friction of listing the excess and facilitating the swapping.”

• “People need to be able to actually know that I have something available, and I want to be able to more easily know what other people have.”

• “There needs to be a better dashboard or a screen showing things that are on offer.”

Interpretation:

UX improvements are the most actionable pathway for growth.

8th Category: AI as Commons Infrastructure

Theme: Participants see AI as the natural interface for commons coordination.

• “There is so much that could be done using AI.”

• “I could voice record everything I have, and AI would automatically create a set of vouchers.”

• “I just review, check it is correct, press a button, and it goes into the pool.”

Interpretation:

This strongly validates your intuition: AI-enabled commons tooling is a desired feature.

9th Category: Physical Accessibility & Logistics

Theme: Entering the building was occasionally inconvenient.

• “Accessing the building was not easy for people coming alone.”

• “I had to wait for other people to arrive so we could enter together.”

Interpretation:

Minor logistical hurdle, easily solvable.

10th Category: Desire for Continuity & Future Participation

Theme: Participants want this to become a recurring element of ETH gatherings.

• “I think it could be a really cool stall in future crypto conferences.”

• “If you hosted this at a booth with a live dashboard, you could get a lot of things swapped.”

• “The Regen Village was a place I want to be in the next crypto conference.”

• “I am super ready for the next one, so let me know how I can best support it.”

Interpretation:

Strong appetite for continuity and scaling — especially across next year’s ETH conferences.

11th Category: Appreciation & Recognition of Your Role

Theme: Participants expressed personal gratitude, admiration, and affection.

• “First of all, I loved it.”

• “I am really grateful for you for organizing it.”

• “Thank you for everything. When you want something to happen, you go there and make it happen.”

• “I appreciate you.”

Interpretation:

Your personal energy and initiative are recognized as essential to the experience’s success.

7. Discussion

The Regen Village functioned as a commoning experiment that created the conditions for commoning during a temporary stay in a new country. Coordination began prior to the event, and participants experienced the outcomes of this collective preparation throughout the conference week. This temporal structure—pre-event coordination followed by in-situ practice—proved essential for fostering a sense of shared responsibility and belonging.

The Village microeconomy enabled both onchain and offchain exchanges. Participant feedback suggests that the number of onchain exchanges could have been higher if the user experience were simpler and more immediate. Related experiments offer useful insights. At ETH Safari 2025 in Kenya, Grassroots Economics explored the use of NFC wristbands backed by a cUSD treasury to facilitate local exchanges (Ruddick, 2025). This approach offers a promising methodology for reducing friction in localized microeconomies and could be adapted for future Regen Village experiments.

However, the cosmo-local dimension of the Village extends beyond the local context. There is value in being able to rely on global support, and it can be healthy for communities to allow external participants to hold stake without exercising extractive control. This suggests the possibility of an interface where the global crypto token economy meets local community economies in a non-extractive way. For instance, if a pop-up NFC-based microeconomy proves successful in a given location, enabling aligned global participants to invest in and support local ventures could strengthen community resilience rather than undermine it.

A dynamic in which global and local actors support each other as commons remains largely underexplored. Conference-based pop-up experiments such as Regen Village serve as sandboxes in which these dynamics can be studied and refined. In this case, the Village was made possible through a prior commitment between the Explorer and Allo capital, whereby whatever treasury was available would be used to support shared cosmo-local experiences. Through the monetization of lodging and NFT sales, the Village established an initial treasury that funded breakfasts and a communal dinner.

Feedback also highlighted areas for improvement, including stronger communication, more effective facilitation of onchain trades, and clearer promotion of events and workshops. These challenges must be understood in context. The Village unfolded during a short stay in a new city, with Local Initiators who were themselves not from Buenos Aires, limited certainty regarding Airbnb hosting constraints, and participants navigating demanding conference schedules. Rather than competing with the conference, the Village intentionally occupied the in-between moments of already busy days.

Digital tools played a crucial role in enabling participation. The seamless creation of NFT vouchers emerged as a particularly meaningful moment in the microeconomy. For many participants, this was their first time explicitly creating an offering and placing it into a commons. Observationally, once participants completed this act, their relationship to the Village appeared to shift. Having contributed, they could fully enjoy the shared space without the feeling of passively consuming community resources. This moment of contribution functioned as a threshold into belonging.

Repeated flash commoning experiences of this kind may provide the contextual density necessary for building cosmo-local organizations. This approach contrasts sharply with the individualistic startup culture that dominates many crypto conferences. Research on commoning consistently emphasizes the importance of repetition for building trust and cultural capital. The coexistence of shared history and future expectation allows traditions to form, shaping how participants engage with the present.

Feinberg et al. (2023), drawing on a decade-long study using agent-based models grounded in Ostrom’s design principles, observed that “the construction of cultural capital requires recurring interactions that provide means of adaptation to the natural environment by adding social learning and the retention of knowledge.” Similarly, Colding and Barthel (2013) argue that “solving ecosystem-related issues requires cognitive resilience building, which is also the result of repeated interactions of a group of individuals with a local ecosystem.” Seen through this lens, the Regen Village can be understood not as a single intervention but as an initial iteration in a longer process of cultivating cosmo-local trust, learning, and collective capacity.

The Village was a flash pop-up created with the purpose of facilitating cosmo-local commoning. Local Initiators pre-arranged and committed to a set of pantry items and cultural activities, while Everywheres committed funds and participation. From these initial commitments, the Village emerged. 

The growth of the Village was organic, with participants joining primarily with the intention of sharing. There was no swag, airdrop, or extrinsic incentive beyond spending time with people already present. While a preliminary agenda of activities existed, it was continuously adapted. Still, the Village managed to offer a curated local gastronomic and cultural experience—one that would have occurred even if participation had remained limited to the six Airbnb residents.

8. Emergent Design Patterns for Regen Villages

From this first iteration, several design patterns emerged:

1. Pre-event office hours for co-organization

2. Local sourcing of food and beverages

3. NFT-based lodging commitments

4. Transparent shared treasuries

5. NFT supporter sales

6. Explicit microeconomic intent for exchange

7. Curated cultural experiences

8. Public recognition of contributions through IRL and online interfaces

9. Conclusion

This research explored allocation mechanisms for common use through cosmo-local exchanges embedded within a conference context. Repeated over time, such practices have the potential to generate social learning, cultural capital, and trust between global and local actors. Regen Villages suggest a pathway toward cosmo-local enterprises and communities of practice grounded not in extraction, but in shared stewardship.

10. Acknowledgements

A number of individuals and organizations were key to make this exploration happen. From organizations that funded or built the tools that we used to individuals that bought the Supporters NFTs and those that shared resources in person. I am grateful for all of them for the willingness to commoning:

• Allo Capital - for their dedication in creating the ARQ Research Exploration and improving funding allocation

• Grassroots Economics - for building a tool that makes easy to create wallets, vouchers and pools

• AgroforestDAO - for investing in a Rooted Society and bringing me to the web3 world

• Regens Unite - for hosting our Bazaar and sharing our side events

• To the Regen Village Supporters that raised the treasury by buying the Supporters NFT: Joshua from Desci World; Eric Miki; Monty Merlin; Ramona from Solarpunk Futures; Mihkel; Paul Glavin from Gardens

• To the Local Initiators Penelope, Max y Lejito that shared the dream since the beginning

11. References

1. Bollier, D., Helfrich, S. (2015). Patterns of commoning. Commons Strategy Group and Off the Common Press

2. Bawens, M. (2025). The Cosmo-Local plan for our next civilization. Ethereum Localism - Grounding the Future of Coordination. The Public Machine.

3. Feinberg, A., Ghorbani, A., Herder, P. (2023). Commoning toward urban resilience: The role of trust, social cohesion, and involvement in a simulated urban commons setting. Journal of Urban Affairs.

4. Colding, J., Barthel, S. (2013). The potential of "urban green commons" in the resilience building of cities. Ecological Economics, 86, 156-166.

5.Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2019). Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 11(4), 589–597

6.. Ruddick W. (2025). ETHSafari x Grassroots Economics 2025 - How Festival Bracelets Became Living Wallets. Available online.

No segundo trimestre de 2025 fui convidado a participar na organização da primeira Pop-up City do Brasil, a Ipê City, um experimento de convivência e construção de bens comuns a acontecer entre Abril e Maio em Florianópolis, Brasil. Desde as primeiras chamadas de planejamento ficou claro que este seria um processo emergente e com resultados diretamente dependentes da contribuição de cada pessoa e organização envolvida.

Um espaço de co-living e co-working de um mês que reuniu talentos globais para prototipar uma nova cidade e sistema de governança usando IA e tecnologia descentralizada. Dezenas de arquitetos se encontravam diariamente para compartilhar o café da manhã, apresentar seus projetos, atualizações e planos para a Ipê. Essa convivência permitiu o surgimento de amizades, projetos e aprendizagens comuns.

A contribuição da AgroforestDAO teve início semanas antes. Coordenando com membros do Netx State, inauguramos a Regen Haus, uma casa que serviu como sede para diversas oficinas, co-inspiração, co-working e celebrações. Esses eventos faziam parte da Regen Track, uma sequência de quests regenerativas criadas no aplicativo Impact Miner, onde os participantes recebiam pontos para realizar atividades de impacto como mutirões de plantio, trilhas, excursões, oficinas e palestras.  Ao final do mês, a pessoa com mais pontos ganhou um jantar em um restaurante local.

Ao final, conseguimos realizar nossa missão de “enraizar” a Ipê City, no sentido de conseguir oferecer uma experiência de inclusão agroecológica para os nativos de web3, através de vivências agroflorestais. Como resultado foi criado um grupo online servindo de ponte entre mentores agroflorestais locais - que experimentaram cripto pela primeira vez - e arquitetos da Ipê City, que experimentaram agrofloresta pela primeira vez, comprometidos a realizar encontros mensais ao longo de todas as estações. Este é um modelo de aprendizagem

Incentivado pela AgroforestDAO e que pode ser escalado para qualquer região do Brasil e do mundo. Continuaremos construindo pontes entre mentores e aprendizes e provando este modelo de educação para resiliência, combinando agrofloresta com web3.

In the second quarter of 2025, I was invited to participate in the organization of the first Pop-up City in Brazil, Ipê City, an experiment in coexistence and the construction of common goods to take place between April and May in Florianópolis, Brazil. From the first planning calls, it was clear that this would be an emerging process with results directly dependent on the contribution of each person and organization involved.

A month-long co-living and co-working space that brought together global talent to prototype a new city and governance system using AI and decentralized technology. Dozens of architects met daily to share breakfast, present their projects, updates, and plans for Ipê. This coexistence allowed for the emergence of friendships, projects, and common learning.

AgroforestDAO’s contribution began weeks earlier. Coordinating with members of Netx State, we opened Regen Haus, a home that served as a venue for a variety of workshops, co-inspiration, co-working, and celebrations. These events were part of the Regen Track, a series of regenerative quests created in the Impact Miner app, where participants earned points for impactful activities such as planting drives, hikes, field trips, workshops, and lectures. At the end of the month, the person with the most points won dinner at a local restaurant.

In the end, we were able to fulfill our mission of “rooting” Ipê City, in the sense of being able to offer an experience of agroecological inclusion for web3 natives, through agroforestry experiences. As a result, an online group was created serving as a bridge between local agroforestry mentors - who tried crypto for the first time - and Ipê City architects, who tried agroforestry for the first time, committed to holding monthly meetings throughout all seasons. This is a learning model

Powered by AgroforestDAO and scalable to any region in Brazil and the world, we will continue building bridges between mentors and apprentices and proving this model of education for resilience, combining agroforestry with web3.

Measuring Agroforests

In agroforests, more than 40 tons of food per hectare per year can be produced. This high productivity is possible, among other factors, because of the diversified production on the same piece of land. It is a myth, therefore, to think that agroforests produce little. This myth is sustained by the illusion that high productivity is only possible by controlling nature with heavy machinery, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides.

Moreover, unlike conventional agriculture, which usually produces much less per area, agroforests also produce biodiversity, increase soil fertility, and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere—not elsewhere, but in the same productive area.

To get an idea of how much carbon agroforests are removing from the atmosphere, a study was conducted between 2011 and 2012 on sixteen agroforests, with ages ranging from 1 to 15 years, with areas between 0.3 and 2.0 hectares, and managed by different families associated with Cooperafloresta. In each of these agroforests, five plots (10 x 10 meters) were established, within which all plants taller than 1.5 meters were identified, and their heights and diameters were measured, mapping out the position of each one within the plot.

The first conclusions of this study showed the effectiveness of agroforests in conserving and increasing biodiversity: 194 species of shrubs and trees were identified in the sixteen agroforests studied, with the majority (89%) of species being common to the Atlantic Forest biome. On average, 37 species were identified per agroforest. Most of the plants in these agroforests were planted (61%), while the rest (39%) came from natural regeneration, which is maintained and stimulated. Since the planting is quite dense, the plant density in agroforests is 7,231 plants per hectare.

With this high diversity of species and plant density, the farming families who practice agroforestry have contributed to the increase in biodiversity not only in their own areas but also through the pollination of flowers and seeds for the recovery of other areas in the region, partnering with a wide variety of insects, birds, bats, and rodents that transport this plant biodiversity.

And How to Measure Carbon Fixation?

With the data on all the plants measured in the survey, it was possible to identify which ones appear most frequently in gardens and which ones contribute the most, collectively, with the greatest area of aboveground biomass and trunks. To study carbon fixation in agroforests, the 30 species that showed the highest combination of these characteristics (called the Importance Value Index) were initially selected. An adult plant (with a trunk diameter greater than 5 cm) of each of these 30 species was then cut down to determine how much each one weighed in its biomass. For banana trees, for example, one of the species with the highest importance value, 15 plants from each of the agroforests were cut down for an average calculation. Knowing the biomass and diameter values and the height of all measured plants, it was possible to create equations to estimate the biomass of the aboveground part (trunk, branches, and leaves) of the agroforests as a whole.

For this study, plants with a trunk diameter smaller than 5 cm were used. Ten 10 m² plots were established in different agroforests. In addition to being cut, these species of plants that did not reach this diameter were also dried and weighed to estimate the aboveground biomass. It was known that in the studied area, the ratio between the biomass with seeds and the biomass with trunks and branches was 1.0 for planted species. Thus, it was known how much woody biomass was stored in an agroforest by its age. However, the biomass of living plants is not the only form of carbon storage in agroforests. Pruning branches and trees is a very frequent practice in these areas. Part of the carbon in this material is incorporated into the soil through the action of soil microorganisms. According to studies by researchers at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, conducted over eleven years in no-till areas, this ratio is 0.146. This means that for every ton of branches and leaves deposited on the soil in no-till areas, the amount of carbon from this material is incorporated into the soil through soil microorganisms.

How Much Carbon Dioxide Do Agroforests Remove from the Atmosphere?

The results indicated that, considering only the aboveground part (trunk, branches, and leaves) of plants with a trunk diameter greater than 5 cm, young agroforests (3 to 5 years old) store an average of 2.8 tons of carbon per hectare. Agroforests aged 4 to 9 years store 11.6 tons of carbon in the aboveground part of their plants. The trunks, branches, and leaves of plants in older agroforests (10 to 15 years old) store an average of 31.4 tons of carbon per hectare.

For the aboveground part of plants with a trunk diameter of less than 5 cm, the average carbon stock was 4.5 tons per hectare.

Combining these data with the estimated biomass of the roots (20% of the aboveground biomass), it was possible to determine the amount of carbon stored in the biomass of all plants in the agroforests:

Carbon Stock in the Plants of Agroforests of Farmers Associated with Cooperafloresta:

Age of Agroforests (years) and Carbon Stock (tons per hectare):

• 1 to 3: 8,8 t/ha

• 4 to 9: 19.4 t/ha

• 10 to 15: 43.0 t/ha

When pruned and collected, the weight of the pruned material, as well as the percentage of carbon in the collected material, were evaluated. Only the dry weight of the pruned material was included in the calculation of carbon quantity in the soil, because the carbon in the foliar part decomposes rapidly and is re-emitted as CO2. Therefore, the pruned material incorporated only 0.6 tons of carbon per hectare in older agroforests (10 to 15 years old).

Due to this pruning, that is, from the microbial degradation of the pruned material, in agroforests aged 1 to 3 years, only 1.6 tons of carbon per hectare were incorporated into the soil. In agroforests aged 4 to 9 years, this amount was 3.5 tons of carbon, and in agroforests aged 10 to 15 years, 2.6 tons of carbon in average were incorporated into the soil.

These results show how the practice of pruning helps not only the regrowth of pruned plants and the entry of light for shorter plants and trees, but also the strengthening of the soil.

Adding the carbon stock in the aboveground part of the plants to the carbon stock in the soil, it was possible to affirm that in 15 years, agroforests associated with Cooperafloresta removed 60.5 tons of carbon per hectare from the atmosphere.

Annual Increase in Carbon in the Agroforests of Farmers Associated with Cooperafloresta:

Age of Agroforests (years):

• 1 to 3: 4.5 t/ha

• 4 to 9: 6.7 t/ha

• 10 to 15: 6.5 t/ha

Many plants in younger agroforests (1 to 3 years old) are still growing rapidly and, therefore, removing a lot of carbon from the atmosphere. The same occurs with agroforests aged 4 to 9 years. In older agroforests (10 to 15 years old), the increase in carbon stock was smaller than in the first 10 years. Nevertheless, it was still considerable, with an average of 6.6 tons of carbon per hectare incremented annually.

Transcribed by ChatGPT

Muitas sociedades humanas esgotaram o ambiente que as rodeia e por isso tiveram que conquistar novos territórios. A cultura dos conquistadores dominou as sociedades modernas e, com o advento da globalização, o padrão de esgotamento regional que levou ao colapso do Império Romano e de outras civilizações antigas atingiu um padrão globalizado e está a ameaçar todas as formas de vida.

Face a este possível colapso global, muitas pessoas no movimento ambientalista defendem um regresso às antigas formas de organização e governação, como o biorregionalismo e o localismo. De acordo com Tristan Bove, “o biorregionalismo considera que as biorregiões são definidas pelas pessoas que as habitam, que partilham uma identidade cultural única e se consideram igualmente em casa dentro da biorregião”.

Hoje em dia, a maior parte da população consome direta ou indiretamente bens globalizados, e alguns consideram uma hipocrisia defender o localismo enquanto consomem bens produzidos globalmente. Muitas pessoas não querem abrir mão do café, do chocolate, do açúcar, da carne ou das redes sociais globais. A maior parte da população urbana está mais envolvida com as cadeias de abastecimento globais do que com as locais e, portanto, o biorregionalismo parece-lhes estranho e não existem atualmente incentivos para mudar a sua mentalidade.

Os modelos de organização localizada, por si só, não foram suficientemente fortes para manter as pessoas na terra ou incentivar as pessoas urbanas a sair da cidade para se envolverem com a regeneração local. Muitas vezes, as comunidades locais estão vazias e degradadas, aqueles que ainda vivem lá não são reconhecidos pela sua contribuição para o ambiente e enfrentam muitas privações em comparação com os moradores urbanos. Exemplos comuns são a falta de emprego, formação, educação de qualidade, diversidade alimentar, plano de aposentadoria e convívio cosmopolita.

Acreditamos que devemos integrar os moradores urbanos e rurais no esforço regenerativo através de agroecossistemas que evoluem e vivem mais do que a nossa própria geração. A camada biorregional por si só não é suficiente para regenerar os ecossistemas esgotados e deve ser complementada por uma camada global de coordenação para garantir a regeneração assistida e o aporte de sementes. Felizmente, neste século XXI temos a Internet e a blockchain e esta pode ser usada como o local onde implantamos uma estigmergia digital, co-criando sistemas de reconhecimento, incentivos e recompensas para ajudar a reintegrar os humanos nas agendas agroflorestais.

Defendemos a compreensão de que somos uma tribo global e que o nosso planeta é a nossa biorregião. Com esta consciência em mente, podemos criar sistemas de governança que permitam a participação de todos os seres humanos na construção de uma cultura comum de impacto socioecológico em todas as biorregiões, construindo os nossos bens comuns seguindo os 8 princípios de Elinor Ostrom para governos comunitários:

1. Limites claramente definidos.

2. Regulamentos feitos pelos membros que correspondem às necessidades e condições da comunidade e do seu ambiente.

3. Um sistema estabelecido para tomada de decisões que permite que indivíduos afetados pelas regulamentações alterem as regulamentações.

4. Mentores oriundos ou responsáveis ​​perante a comunidade de membros que garantam ativamente que as regras estabelecidas pelos mestres estão a ser cumpridas.

5. Sanções graduadas para membros que violam os regulamentos. Estes são determinados pelos membros da comunidade ou por indivíduos responsáveis ​​perante a comunidade.

6. Mecanismos de resolução de conflitos de baixo custo e facilmente acessíveis aos membros da comunidade.

7. A capacidade de criar regulamentos sem a necessidade de uma autoridade externa.

8. Tomada de decisão descentralizada no caso de bens comuns maiores.

The Rooted Society Manifesto

Most human societies have depleted the environment around them and for that reason had to conquer new territories. The culture of the conquerors have dominated modern societies and with the advent of Globalization the regional depletion pattern that led to the collapse of the roman empire and other ancient civilizations has scaled to a globalized pattern and is threatening all life forms.

In face of this possible global collapse, a lot of people in the environmental movement advocate for a return to ancient forms of organization and governance such as bioregionalism and localism. According to Tristan Bove, “bioregionalism considers bioregions to be defined by the people that inhabit them, who share a unique cultural identity and consider themselves equally at home within the bioregion”.

Today most of the population directly or indirectly consumes globalized goods, and some find it hypocritical to advocate for localism while consuming globally produced goods. A lot of people don’t want to let go of their coffee, chocolate, sugar, meat or global social media. Most of the urban population is more engaged with the global supply chains than with the local ones, and therefore bioregionalism feels alien to them and there are currently no incentives to change their mindset.

Localized organization models alone were not strong enough to keep people in the land or incentivize urban people to exit the city to engage in local regeneration. Very often local communities are empty and degraded, the ones still living there are not recognized by their contribution to the environment and face a lot of deprivation compared to urban dwellers. Common examples are lack of jobs, training, quality education, diversity of food, retirement plan and cosmopolitan conviviality.

We believe that we must integrate the urban and rural dwellers in the natural regeneration via agroecosystems that evolve and live longer than our own generation. The Bioregional layer alone is not enough to regenerate the depleted ecosystems and must be complemented by a global layer of coordination to insure stewarded regeneration and seeds inputs. Fortunately in this 21st century we have the internet and the blockchain and it can be used as the place where we deploy digital stigmergy, co-creating recognition, incentives and reward systems to help re-integrate humans to forestry agendas.

We advocate for the understanding that we are a global tribe and that our planet is our bioregion. With this awareness in mind we can create governance systems that allow for participation of all humans in building a common culture of socio-ecological inclusion across bioregions, building our commons following Elinor Ostrom 8 principles for governing the commons:

1. Clearly defined boundaries.

2. Regulations made by the commoners that correspond to the needs and conditions of the community and their environment.

3. An established system for decision-making that allows individuals affected by the regulations to change the regulations.

4. Monitors drawn from, or accountable to the community of commoners who actively ensure the rules established by the commoners are being adhered to.

5. Graduated sanctions for members who violate regulations. These are determined by members of the community, or by individuals accountable to the community.

6. Conflict-resolution mechanisms that are low cost and easily accessible for members of the commons.

7. The ability to create regulations without the infringement of an outside authority.

8. Decentralized decision-making in the case of larger commons.

The Spring of 2022 came in September 22nd for us in Brazil, and that's when the rains and therefore the agricultural cycle started. A few months before that I had started building online web3 community around the subject of food, forests and culture. I dove into the Web3 rabbit hole in February 22 when I joined the Kernel0x Fellowship and got optimistic in April 22 during the Planet Positive Hackathon, when we got 3rd place with our project Agroforestry Journals NFTs, which purpose was to create a learn-to-earn ecosystem where apprentices are incentivized to level up while accessing land to produce food, steward and share seeds, and create content through monthly journals. 

I always felt that it was important to share and make sense of this together with the global community, because the connection with Earth was being left aside in modern society. I have been sharing this kind of content for years in web2 social medias like the Earth Regenerators network, and even before, in the blogsphere, here and here. 

However I felt the need to go beyond posting, we needed more community supported dynamics, so I turned into web3 and founded AgroforestDAO, a hub for agroforestry initiatives to support each other and start creating common value. That was winter 2022, also the time I first participated in the Gitcoin Rounds, and went from a newbie trying to create the perfect pitch to someone that gave away the pitch search to just share real work and think in terms of rooted intergenerational coordination, with a strong belief in human stigmergy.

So then came the 2022 Spring. I was eager to create web3 content about my actions on the ground, to maybe serve as an example to others, and add to the collective knowledge. I didn’t want to become a content creator sharing my doings, but I wanted to build a coordination mechanism that could include everyone in the regenerative movement. I focused on making sense of this together with the AgroforestDAO telegram group and twitter followers.  

I didn’t have a partner willing to go trough web3 onboarding at the time, so shared the spring work of designing and establishing a food forest to a client, as you can see in the picture. I planted rice, corn, peanuts, taro, banana, cassava, sugar cane, avocados, palm trees and other species of food crops and trees. I used Twitter as the platform to publish the process, and it was very useful to spread the word about regenerative ag among crypto folks. 

In the digital soil this helped me gather like minded folks to make sense of this rooted coordination. In real soil the new agroforestry system (SAF) was well taken care of by the client and his employees during the Spring/Summer semester and yielded a good portion of seeds and propagules that will allow us to keep multiplying it. This time we will establish the SAF in a new place, with a traditional rural family as local steward and under a specific contract which I will share more about in the next post. 

Thank you for reading it, and I will continue this story soon! Feel free to collect this entry and be whitelisted for future perks!

I will share with you a story from the place I live, but I have a feeling this story could be expanded to many other places in Brazil and worldwide. It is a story of a guy that loves cultivating food forests but that don’t have enough land to scale.

For the past 10 years I have been trying to make a transition from the city to the rural. Together with my partner we bought a small degraded land, built a house and started regenerating the place. And so it happened, after 10 years it became a nice food forest. I also managed to multiply seeds of rice, beans, peanuts, corn, rhizomes of taro, cassava, and other sun friendly yearly species that weren’t happy under the shade of the food forest.

So I looked for a land to lease to continue the process of increasing biodiversity, this time leaving more space between the tree rows to plant the crops. I talked to a neighbor here, a cattle rancher like all my neighbors, and he leased me a small piece of his compacted brachiaria pasture. It was August 2020, in the midst of the dry season. and I was up for the biggest harvests of my life. I first cutted all the grass, wrecked it to the sides, tilled the land (only once in the first year) and brought the wrecked material back in to cover the tree rows, that were raised to a concave shape and added compost. The end result was mimicking a bird’s nest, with the borders higher then the middle, a shape that provides a bit of shade in the middle and help to harness humidity. It was oriented North-South so as the trees wouldn’t make shade in the mid lines.

At the time I was interacting a lot in a web 2 social network called earth-regenerators and wanted to document the evolution of the plot so maybe people could relate, and experience the natural rhythm, with only monthly posts, but with the full length of one year or more. Now I plan to share it here with you in the form of a few posts and NFTs. I hope you enjoy the journey.

This is it for now, to be continued.

I want to take this first post to present the Community Supported Food Forest project. It may seem strange to bring this topic to web 3, but this is the global arena for community innovation right now. For the sake of survival, food forests are essential and urgent. Seems like mankind is heading to an Eastern Island outcome after destroying not only the forests but killing the culture of long-term community agriculture. Nowadays the new generations don’t inherit food trees from their grandparents. Food trees produce without needing yearly input, so they are energy efficient and it gives peace of mind to know that you can expect harvests every year. So this is the bottleneck we want to work on.

Not only to create sparse intergenerational flows but to do it in a systematic way, creating an economy of incentives to members. We will start it of by inviting forest gardeners to document their monthly and seasonal activities for us to follow, creating ties between the writers, the readers and the lands. Even from a distance and through the phone, if we communicate properly and through all the seasons we can create strong relationships, belonging and opportunities.

The 20th century dualism of farmers and consumers is toxic for society. We must all be part of the same game and collaborate in any ways we can, not necessarily going to the field, but there are many ways to exchange multiple capitals. We must all become co producers of our natural legacy to the next generations.