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Meet “Gilbert the Goanna” a lizard who is on a mission to plant trees and demonstrate how green NFTs created on Algorand can be good for the planet.
Gilbert the Goanna is the genesis piece from Algorand’s breakout NFT series, Al Goanna. Inspired by Algorand’s commitment to sustainability and carbon negative approach, Al Goanna gives back to the environment. Through a partnership established with Australian organization Carbon Neutral, they have contributed to the planting of over 30,000 native trees and shrubs. These trees will be planted within the Yarra Yarra Biodiversity Corridor being developed in South Western Australia and will be protected by a legal covenant for a minimum of 100 years.
Now the Al Goanna Project has teamed up with the owners of Gilbert to launch a new initiative to help the project plant more trees and change the narrative that NFTs are bad for the environment. Together they have launched a new website where members of the community can contribute directly to tree planting projects around the world and make their donations in Algorand’s native token. The platform, algoanna001.com, is now live and already accepting donations for the Australian tree planting partnership with Carbon Neutral. Over the coming months additional partnerships will come online to support similar projects in other continents.
“Throughout the project we have received tremendous support from the Algorand community with both creators and collectors actively contributing to our tree planting initiative. This new platform will allow us to expand our impact and make it easier for members of the community to contribute as they can transact directly in Algos.” says Al Goanna founder, Benji.
To celebrate the launch of the new platform, Arul and Kavitha have pledged to contribute 10,000 Algos to kickstart Gilbert’s misson.
“The vision behind Gilbert the Goanna is to demonstrate the value an NFT can bring and also inspire more green NFT’s on algorand that can create real world impact. Climate change is real and we have been looking for opportunities to do our part to support sustainability and renewable energy efforts around the globe. Planting trees is the first step to offset carbon emissions and support biodiversity. We had previously been involved in tree planting initiatives and Al Gonna has bridged our love for both Gilbert and planting trees.
We look forward to working with the Algorand community to help us plant millions of trees globally “said Arul and Kavitha, the owners of algoanna001 (Gilbert the Goanna)
Al Goanna
Al Goanna is an NFT collection created on Algorand that features 489 unique 1/1 NFTs. Launched in early September 2021 it has been a breakout project amongst the growing Algorand NFT community. The project’s initial pledge was to plant one tree for each NFT created, however at the time of writing they have already contributed to the planting of over 30,000 trees and are rapidly closing in on their short term goal of 50,000 before the end of the year.
Algorand NFTs
There is a common misconception that NFTs are bad for the environment. While in certain cases this is true, not all NFTs are created equal. Unlike well known blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum that rely on energy intensive mining to secure their networks, Algorand uses a pure proof of stake protocol. This allows it to operate with incredibly low energy consumption. Any energy that is used is offset and it is in fact it is one of the world’s first carbon negative blockchains.
NFTs can be minted on Algorand, quickly, cheaply and most importantly with very low energy inputs, making them amongst the greenest in the world. The Al Goanna NFT series is one of the first major break out NFT projects to come from the Algorand ecosystem.
Their example has helped to inspire other projects to contribute positively to the environment and to bring awareness to the unique properties of the Algorand
blockchain, which make it the perfect platform for creating NFTs.
