What is Ogallala Life?

Section: ReFi, Blockchain, NFT, bridge ReFi to IRL

Token listing on: Not yet listed

Token name: NA

Blockchain: Cross-Chain

Background

One-third of all the groundwater used for irrigation in the US is mined from the US High Plains Aquifer System (major aquifer, the Ogallala), sustaining one-fifth of the US' total beef, corn, cotton, and wheat production. The system is immense, stretching over 170k sq miles, underlying eight states and a fourth of all US farmland. Water table shave declined hundreds of feet, historic natural discharge to springs and streams reduced by 90% or more. Its' rivers and streams are dry gullies subject to intermittent flash flooding, and little effort is given to recharge or retain water in the ground. There is no intact prairie biome.

Legacy institutions built on nation-state concepts lack mechanisms to respond to changing climate and to manage resources like groundwater, much less achieve sustainable development and resilient communities. This is largely driven by fundamental failures inherent to our legal systems, a mixed inheritance of the British,Spanish, and Roman empires. In Texas, surface water belongs to the state but can be used for multiple purposes. Groundwater is a real property interest, can be severed from the surface, and is considered a commodity once produced(pumped from a well). The law concerning groundwater, the rule of capture, is based on sound imperial policy – to encourage resource exploitation. Decades of subsidies, fed-backed loans, and insurance have intensified agriculture, and more than 90% of the groundwater pumped from this region is for irrigation.

A group of locals, land users, students and enthusiasts recognized this sorry state of affairs and found hope in the potential offered by blockchain and smart-contract technology. They formed Ogallala Life Conservation Inc. (hereafter, “Ogallala Life” or “Ogallala”), a nonprofit organization (501c3 pending) committed to enriching the lives and landscapes on and around the high plains aquifer system by learning, teaching, developing and deploying web3 tools for watersheds, wetlands function and landscape re-hydration.

Defi for Public Good

Ogallala's plan is to form a sustainable, perpetual, crowdfunded endowment to fund ecological contracts related to watersheds, wetlands, and retention and help subsidize a region-wide network of regenerative projects that focus on water and water security, sustained by more comprehensive, functional payment for ecosystem services (PES) marketplaces than currently offered by traditional contracting models. The team prefers to conceptualize their aims within an ecosystem services framework, but notes that the endowment could be described as funding decentralized distributed small scale water harvest and infiltration infrastructure for water security.

Their first endowment was built on AngelProtocol.io, a crowdfunding and smart contract endowment platform built on Terra's (classic) stable coin ecosystem. The stable coin depegged and the blockchain collapsed, but Angel Protocol has landed on their feet, on Juno, and found financial backing to make the charities“whole”, including ours. Look for Angel Protocol's marketplace to launch onSeptember 26^th, and Ogallala Life's endowment profile can be found at SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities).

In the meantime, their continued ability to work relies on the goodwill, the love of the public, supporters, and funding from GitCoin and the like (thank you!).

ReFi to Value Natural Capital

Ogallala envisions using regenerative decentralized finance tools to achieve better, more functional PES marketplaces, frameworks for sustainable and impact bonds, small-scale distributed infrastructure, and more. 

Regen NetworkDevelopment – the team at Ogallala Life submitted a methodology concept note focusing on watersheds and wetlands function in semi-arid and drylands.Fundamentally, the concept is simple – pay the land user to treat watersheds like watersheds, wetlands like wetlands. Today, most of these critical are drained, grazed, and farmed. 

Dmeter4dMRV –Ogallala Life is a founding organization to dMeter, a coalition, and DAO-to-bewith a mission to build dMRV (decentralized distributed digital MeasurementRecordation Validation) The founding group voted to build and develop on Ogallala Life pilot projects in the Texas panhandle. Fellow collaborators include Avano, Astral, Kollectivo, Athena, Shamba, Silvi, and more.

Messaging, Community Building, Advocacy

The mission of Ogallala Life necessitates community building and engagement – bridging web3 and global interests to local communities, many rural and dependent on intensive ag and/or extractive industry (oil and gas). 

The project needs locally relevant demonstrations of regenerative projects to research and demonstrate the effect that various actions, practices, and interventions have on representative landscapes. The team has scoped, reviewed, and assessed 2-3sites of approximately 500 acres total for the first "cohort" of pilots in the focus area. 

The project also intends to begin work, focusing on capacity-building, by year's end. This work will be conducted in collaboration with dMeter and participatory organizations like Athena Protocol (beta testing FOAM, building IOT for dMRV) and SilviDAO (forestation project). Near-term pilots include agroforestry, sand and sub surface dams, check dam cascade, riparian vegetation, road water harvest, and repurposing old sedimented "conservation" dams. 

Closing Statement

Ogallala Life would not exist without the energy, optimism, and passion of undergraduate students associated with the Buff Sustainability Team headed by Matt Loftin, professor of business at West Texas A&M University (WTAMU. The Buff SustainabilityTeam competes in an annual business case competition, aligned with sustainable development goals, called Enactus+, and made it to finals last year, discussing, in large part, their work and contributions to Ogallala Life. We hope to have more concrete successes to present by the end of this year and grow our education and academic engagement efforts. 

Web3 can"solve" water security, and Ogallala Life intends to demonstrate just that here on the US High Plains Aquifer System. Support their efforts by funding their Gitcoin GR15 grant (climate round), and dMeters (climate &desci), and be on the lookout for the Angel Protocol's anticipated launch thisSeptember 26^th. The team at Ogallala Life recommends their platform for a variety of ReFi uses and insists that the Angel Protocol team went well above the call of duty, and is awesome.

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