ForestWeb3: Mobilising, Harmonising and Incentivising Forest Biodiversity and Environmental Monitoring Data through Web 3.0 Technology

Abstract

Background and Rationale Despite decades of progress in ecological monitoring, primary biodiversity and environmental data remain unevenly mobilised and poorly interoperable (Hampton et al. 2015, Poisot et al. 2019). Datasets, often gathered with public funds, frequently remain inaccessible or insufficiently described, limiting their reuse in global syntheses (Culina et al. 2018). Ecologists’ concerns about trust, transparency, and control of shared data persist, particularly where data production is resource-intensive or socially embedded. These concerns echo the foundational properties of distributed ledgers, where ownership and governance are distributed across peer networks rather than centralized repositories (Lewis et al. 2023). Forests exemplify both the potential and the challenge of such decentralised infrastructures. As globally significant carbon and biodiversity reservoirs, forests are also deeply fragmented across ownership and jurisdictional boundaries. In Europe alone, over half of forested land is privately owned, yet these actors often lack mechanisms to derive tangible value from stewardship. At the same time, digital twins (macroecological models) that integrate in situ and remotely sensed data, are becoming central to forest policy and monitoring frameworks (e.g., Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF)). ForestWeb3 (FW3) hypothesizes that a decentralised, Findable Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable (FAIR; Wilkinson et al. 2016, Nosek et al. 2022)-aligned data network can unlock the latent value of underused biodiversity data while building trust and incentives for participation.. Objectives Mobilisation and harmonisation of forest biodiversity and environmental data (Objective 1): to spearhead a shift from data curation to data stewardship through a decentralised data infrastructure built on open-source blockchain frameworks. Incentivisation and uptake (Objective 2): to design transnational pathways through which private forest owners and local communities can be economically rewarded for verifiable ecological data via nature-backed digital assets and ReFi mechanisms. Together, these objectives align technical innovation (Objective 1) with behavioural and economic motivation (Objective 2), establishing the groundwork for distributed biodiversity observatories capable of sustaining long-term ecological data flows. Methodological Approach WP 1 develops a blockchain-based data ledger with smart contracts that autonomously manage data registration, access control, and reuse. Metadata and identifiers are immutably recorded on-chain, while primary datasets remain decentralised on contributor-managed nodes. This architecture enables contributors to retain data sovereignty while ensuring transparency and traceability in reuse transactions. WP 2 extends the infrastructure to real-time environmental sensing through the integration of modular Internet ofThings (IoiT)-based microclimate sensors. These devices stream environmental data at high temporal resolution directly into the distributed ledger, forming a Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network (DePIN) for ecological data. WP 3 links these data streams to the creation of digital twins of forest ecosystems, combining in situ biodiversity observations with satellite and climate datasets to model ecosystem integrity. These models underpin the valuation of nature-backed digital assets, a form of tokenised evidence for ecological performance, providing the data foundation for voluntary biodiversity and carbon markets. Finally, WP4 investigates forest owners’ perceptions, motivations, and barriers to adopting regenerative finance (ReFi)-based conservation mechanisms. Through interviews and a pan-European survey, it explores how varying sociocultural and institutional contexts shape engagement with emerging biodiversity credit schemes, drawing parallels to established Payment for Ecosystem Services frameworks (Kaiser et al. 2021). Significance and Legacy FW3 exemplifies the convergence of data decentralisation, digital sensing, and regenerative economics, a triad capable of transforming how ecological knowledge is produced, verified, and valued. By embedding data provenance and attribution within the infrastructure itself, we addresses long-standing issues of trust and recognition in ecological data sharing. Its incentive mechanisms offer pathways to decouple conservation finance from traditional public funding, potentially scaling stewardship and democratizing data mobilisation across millions of hectares of privately owned forest land. The project’s legacy lies in demonstrating that data infrastructures can be both scientific and economic commons, capable of sustaining biodiversity monitoring through distributed participation. Beyond its immediate technical deliverables, ForestWeb3 contributes to a broader vision of dynamic, self-sustaining ecological data ecosystems that power both global biodiversity frameworks and locally grounded conservation action.