In 2019, wildlife photographer Frank Liu<\/a> took a shot of a spotted Zebra. The photo was covered in National Geographic<\/em>, Forbes<\/em>, Smithsonian Magazine<\/em>, and featured on the cover of several South African publications. Today, Liu is trying to move beyond his Web2 legacy and traditional media. He\u2019s traveling the world building a community of artists interested in facilitating wildlife conservation using Web3 technologies. <\/p>\n But there\u2019s a problem. \u00a0<\/p>\n A combination of blockchain fear-mongering and misunderstandings about NFTs and the environment<\/a> have thwarted his conservation efforts\u00a0\u2014 and what might be one of the greatest funding opportunities many small NGOs have ever seen.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI started taking photos in university,\u201d Liu tells nft now. \u201cIn 2016, after my first trip to the Maasai Mara Reserve in Kenya, my photos were published in The Sun<\/em>, The Guardian<\/em>, and The Daily Mail<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Three years later, Liu took the now-famous shots of a spotted baby Zebra<\/a>. If you Google \u201cspotted Zebra,\u201d the first five articles are all about Liu\u2019s photo. Even ChatGPT knows the answer to the question, \u201cWho took the photo of the spotted zebra in 2019?\u201d Liu was in the running for the Natural History Museum\u2019s Wildlife Photographer of the Year<\/a> award once or twice. But he only<\/em> reached the top 300 \u2014 the competition attracts nearly 50,000 entries.<\/p>\n And then the pandemic happened. <\/p>\n Liu says it ended his livelihood. Two years of preparatory work with agencies, tour operators, guides, and safari lodges went up in smoke.\u00a0<\/p>\n Then one of Liu\u2019s former colleagues explained Web3 to him. The colleague had been working with a blockchain company called Empowa<\/a> that was using DeFi to help remote communities get housing in Africa. At the time, Liu wasn\u2019t a complete stranger to blockchain. He had bought his first bit of crypto in 2017, but he hadn\u2019t paid it much mind since then.\u00a0The pandemic changed matters. <\/p>\n Liu and his colleagues decided to put together a wildlife NFT project on the Cardano blockchain, both to support themselves and to raise funds for NGOs focused on wildlife conservation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Liu says the team selected Cardano because it was more sustainable than some other chains. It also had its own fund, and users would vote on projects they wanted to see developed. Liu\u2019s analysis indicated that the Cardano community tended to vote for projects with a real mission and impact, so it seemed like a natural fit.\u00a0<\/p>\n But misinformation made executing the project an uphill battle.\u00a0<\/p>\n Because of the royalty features embedded in smart contracts<\/a>, NFTs can provide creators and the organizations they support with a recurring, reliable source of revenue. In this regard, Liu notes that NFTs \u201crepresent a more sustainable income source for these [smaller] NGOs than other sources.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Liu\u2019s idea was to create an NFT project akin to trading cards. Personally vetted artists would submit their photographs, and these would be turned into collectibles with icons on them. These icons would show the artist\u2019s name, the animal\u2019s scientific name, information on the animal\u2019s habitat, whether the population is increasing or decreasing, and other key details that help raise awareness for that species.\u00a0<\/p>\n The first challenge Liu experienced came from artists. Many of the creators he contacted said they were concerned about sustainability issues stemming from blockchain technologies.\u00a0Despite his attempts to assuage their fears and explain how blockchains actually work, not everyone Liu approached agreed to help him. Several photographers remained unconvinced, positive that NFTs were damaging the environment, condemning the entire practice as unsustainable.<\/p>\n Likewise, the NGOs Liu approached cited concerns over sustainability. After speaking with them at length, Liu says it became clear that they didn\u2019t understand the difference between chains or consensus models. <\/p>\n This poses a real problem. <\/p>\n Liu typically approached niche NGOs focused on a particular species or geographic zone. Because they are so niche, their work is vital. No one is there to take over if they don\u2019t survive.\u00a0According to Liu, these niche NGOs are also continually in survival mode \u2014 spread far too thin and desperate for funding. That\u2019s precisely why NFTs could work so well for them. <\/p>\n An NFT project could bring them urgently needed funds in excess of social media campaigns and other slow-burn methods. In exchange, these NGOs could provide unique content for NFT holders because of their niche position. Liu explains that this value could be original footage, walkalongs around habitats, and other content that would otherwise cost tourists far more than the price of a single NFT. It\u2019s a win-win.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But according to Liu, things are getting increasingly difficult and looking more and more bleak. People see sensationalist articles that lack any<\/em> context<\/a> and take them as truth.\u00a0<\/p>\n And sadly, Liu isn\u2019t the only one having problems. Many who have attempted to launch conservation efforts via NFTs have been met with contempt and watched as their projects floundered and failed due to bad information.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nowhere is the mass misunderstanding of Web3 more apparent than in the NFT projects launched by the World Wildlife Foundations (WWF) in Germany and the UK. The first \u2014 Non-Fungible Animals <\/a>\u2014 was a resounding success<\/a>, raising nearly $300,000 for highly endangered species.\u00a0The latter \u2014 Tokens for Nature<\/a> \u2014 which ran on the same chain, was a bloodbath.\u00a0<\/p>\n Non-Fungible Animals \u2014 named to represent how one animal and species can never be replaced by any other\u00a0\u2014 is still going strong nearly one-and-a-half years after it\u2019s launch. Each animal represented in the project \u2014 the Amur tiger, Baltic porpoise, Persian leopard, and others \u2014 had exactly the same number of NFTs created for it as there are members of its population.\u00a0For example, the Giant Panda collection contained 1,864 NFTs because there are only 1,864 Giant Pandas in the world. The Giant Ibis had 290 NFTs. The rarer animals were more expensive.\u00a0<\/p>\n The project was ultimately widely supported by advertising agencies and publicists.<\/p>\n Anna Graf, the Web3 innovation Lead at Arvato systems<\/a>, was an independent NFT consultant in 2021 when she was asked to advise on the German WWF NFT project. \u201cI found [the project] very interesting,\u201d she tells nft now, \u201cbecause it was the first on-chain NGO project that I had ever heard of.\u201d Graf connected the project with well-known NFT Artist BossLogic<\/a>, who had previously worked with the likes of Disney and Marvel Studios.\u00a0<\/p>\n On the sustainability side, the German WWF project chose Polygon. They also created their own marketplace so that it was possible to seamlessly pay with a credit card through MoonPay, which was \u201cquite a hurdle\u201d at the time, Graf says. Today, MoonPay integrates with OpenSea and other marketplaces. A year and a half ago, that wasn\u2019t the case.\u00a0<\/p>\n Another element that made the German project successful was a powerful storytelling technique, Graf says. The group leveraged advertising agencies to weave in the narrative of the number of these animals into the story. The project promoted the concept of art on chain as opposed to only buying NFTs for investment purposes. In this sense, the project became a visionary one and distanced itself from the cash grabs and \u201ctoo good to be true\u201d 10x and 20x ROI promises that plagued early and mid-2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFor us, it was never about the funds,\u201d a WWF Germany spokesperson told The Verge<\/em><\/a> after the WWF UK debacle. \u201cIt was about raising awareness regarding the species\u2019 extinction.\u201d<\/p>\n In contrast to the success of Non-Fungible Animals, two days after launching its NFT project, WWF UK was backpedaling and offering nearly $50,000 worth of refunds to NFT purchasers. So why did it fail where it\u2019s counterpart flourished? Misinformation. <\/p>\n \u201c[WWF UK] totally failed,\u201d says Graf, \u201cbecause instead of focusing on the art, they told people that Polygon is a chain that is totally carbon neutral or needs less carbon than drinking a glass of water.\u201d It\u2019s impossible to accurately determine the cost of a single NFT transaction because they are processed in blocks. WWF\u2019s statement<\/a> wasn\u2019t, therefore, entirely truthful. \u201cSo they were kind of lying, and this brought up a big discussion,\u201d says Graf.\u00a0<\/p>\n The WWF UK soap-boxing regarding the carbon emissions of NFTs takes on a bitter taste when you consider that WWF received<\/a> a $400,000 grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund in 2019 \u2014 a family that grew fat on a century of oil production<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Graf believes its possible that the WWF UK division wasn\u2019t as accurately advised on the technical elements of the project, leading them to furnish erroneous information about it. But she says she was not involved in that project and cannot claim this with complete certainty.\u00a0<\/p>\n Small NGOs are dying. They are overwhelmed. They need funding now<\/em>. Their loss would be a catastrophe for the environmental zone they cover. NFTs open a realistic door to that funding.\u00a0While greenwashing the blockchain isn\u2019t the solution, it\u2019s important to promote accurate<\/em> information and context about its energy usage in comparison to other environmental culprits.<\/p>\nThe journey into Web3<\/h2>\n
Troubled waters<\/strong><\/h2>\n
A tale of two wildlife foundations<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"amur](\"https:\/\/nftnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Screen-Shot-2022-05-09-at-12.53.17-PM.png\")
![\"Gal\u00e1pagos](\"https:\/\/nftnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Screen-Shot-2023-02-28-at-9.35.43-AM.png\")
The drumbeating helps no one<\/strong><\/h2>\n