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GIP-82: Should GnosisDAO co-fund a community owned forest / land art project (terra0)?

Voting ended over 2 years agoSucceeded

Summary

This proposal seeks Gnosis DAO to become a sponsor and partner that would partially fund terra0 to support the development of a novel large-scale art project in Germany that focuses on community-land stewardship managed by a DAO. The project will expand the use cases of the Gnosis ecosystem by using Gnosis infrastructure (Safe, Gnosis Chain, Zodiac) to manage and restore a forest over an indefinite time period. The artistic development is being supported by Light Art Space (LAS), a German art foundation focused on art, science, and technology and will culminate in a large-scale exhibition in Berlin (3-6 months), allowing for a broad, diverse, and non-native audience to be exposed to Gnosis and Web3.

In parallel, terra0 will produce a legal framework allowing for the integration of a Gnosis Safe with the formation of a German Verein. As part of this proposal, terra0 will develop and provide tools to integrate Gnosis Safes with this framework and use the project to establish an inaugural precedent.

terra0 seeks 195,000 € from Gnosis DAO to help realize this ambitious project (~ 18.2% of 1,071,000 € total project budget). The grant from Gnosis would help fund the purchase of a plot of land containing a forest in Germany and lay the groundwork for the legal framework and application of a DAO as a Verein for a Gnosis Safe. With this funding Gnosis DAO will:

Sponsor the terra0 land art project and be featured on exhibition material, resulting in increased publicity, visibility, and user base for Gnosis, Gnosis Chain, and Gnosis Safe within a new cultural sphere.

Support the development of a new legal framework for DAOs resulting in a composable template engine for Gnosis Safes which allows DAOs to be registered as a Verein in Germany, thereby creating new real-life applications for DAOs built on Gnosis tools.

Receive an allocation of the tokens associated with the upcoming terra0 land art project and DAO. We also see Gnosis DAO as a key community member and participant in the project.

Background

terra0 is a group of developers, artists, and researchers who have been creating artworks and prototyping decentralized applications since 2016. Through technical experimentation, artistic exploration, and stress-testing legal frameworks related to natural resources, terra0 creates technological-augmented ecosystems and questions the contemporary representation of the living environment. In this final version of the project, realized for the first time on the scale of an entire forest in Germany, terra0 will develop a framework for the collaborative management of shared resources and explore alternative, non-exploitative valuations of nature. terra0 plans to instantiate a DAO to cooperatively organize the restoration of the ecosystem using bio-markers oriented towards greater biodiversity and resistance to environmental pressures.

Previous terra0 works and prototypes can be seen on our website. They have been exhibited and discussed at the 58th Carnegie International, the 17th Architecture Biennial Venice, Canadian Centre for Architecture Montreal, The Shed New York City, Kunsthalle Zürich, Francisco Carolinum Linz, Chronus Art Center Shanghai, Furtherfield Gallery London, Schinkel Pavillon Berlin, and Vienna Biennale, among others.

Motivation

It’s no secret that we are in the midst of an ecological crisis spurred on, in large part, by excessive resource use and extraction. In the West, our relationship with the environment has been defined for centuries by land’s productive value, which has led to gross ecological mismanagement and destabilization. terra0 seeks to re-orient this relationship towards intrinsic ecological value by applying Web3 principles of decentralized collective governance, communal ownership of public goods, and automated digital mediation in service of environmental resilience and autonomy. The development of decentralized programmable systems for exchanging value is giving rise to code and community-based digital organizational structures that enable democratic control of property. Novel ecological collectives such as those proposed by terra0 could distribute decision rights based on immanent bio-regional agency, relationships, and proximal metrics.

Rationale

As a collective, terra0 has been experimenting for years with Gnosis Safe as infrastructure for treasury management and as a trust anchor. Historically, we see Gnosis Chain and community as a place where DAO experiments happen; one we believe provides essential DAO infrastructure for the projects, affordable txs, and a community that cares deeply about its development. Gnosis’ commitment to open standards whose design philosophy is one of expandability, inclusivity, and composability aligns with the terra0 ethos of experimenting with novel forms of governance and communities centered around ecological commons.

The proposed art project is of value to the Gnosis community as it engages a diverse audience and is participatory in nature — pairing ecological narratives with a concrete implementation of DAO governance. This includes visitors of the exhibition, online DAO members, local stakeholders, an international art audience, and experts from various fields. When combined with the timescale, exhibition, and participatory nature of the terra0 land art project, presents a unique opportunity to engage an audience that would not normally be accessible while increasing the capability and usage of the Gnosis ecosystem and Gnosis Chain. The land and forest will function as a permanent land art installation and be accompanied by an internationally recognized and large-scale public exhibition organized by LAS in Berlin over the period of 3-6 months — which may travel to other locations in the future. This connection has the potential to enhance the public perception of Gnosis: applied ecology and community governance have rarely been publicly discussed and tested on such a scale.

Additionally, the application and implementation of mapping a Verein onto a DAO will enhance how it can be perceived in a legal context — one we hope will set a precedent that will allow for its legality to be recognized in other locals, contexts, and jurisdictions while featuring Gnosis Chain and tools as key components. Although the legal definition and context of a Verein is unique to Germany, once incorporated, it allows for international members to join the organization — therefore not only being bound to the members residing in Germany (except seven core members). The possibility to integrate DAOs into a concrete legal structure using the Verein is an important building block for our project and enables real-world use cases in areas such as environmental protection and restoration.

Implementation

The land art project will be developed over the next year, in this process terra0 will purchase a plot of land containing a forest (10-20 hectares) in nearby proximity to Berlin, instantiate a DAO to augment the ecological agency of the ecosystem, and transfer the ownership of the land to it. The DAO governs the token systems, enforces the sovereignty of the underlying ecosystem, and mediates human oriented relations. The secondary function of the DAO is that of providing a social space, thus contributing to the stimulation of work groups and educational initiatives relating to ecology and technology. Many visitors and potential DAO participants will have little experience with blockchain and Web3 — and will interact and be exposed to Gnosis Chain and ecosystem for the first time. Through a special statute and voting mechanism of the association which locks the ownership in the DAO, it also serves as a permanent protector of the piece of land against disposal and reintegration into economic dependence and exploitation.

During the production period and exhibition terra0 and LAS will host a series of workshops and events to on-board and orient the community into the DAO. Gnosis DAO will receive a proportional amount of tokens relative to the proposed funding to participate in the terra0 land art project — one that we see as a key member when engaging in a long-term project about the evolution of legal structures pertaining to DAOs and ecological management.

The exhibition component of the terra0 land art project will be exhibited with LAS. Previous exhibitions produced by LAS can be viewed here 1. In recent exhibitions, LAS received approximately 25 000 – 30 000 visitors for the duration, an average of 600-800 visitors a day. Additional coverage of 60 – 100 media outlets enabled the exhibition’s themes to be brought to the forefront of international discourse.

For the land art project to be successful, the DAO requires a legal structure to hold and administer property (land) according to German law. We are currently working with legal teams to define a Gnosis Safe as the managing tool for a Verein under German jurisdiction. This framework will allow for the fluid recognition of token holders (as addresses) to be viewed as legal members of an organization at the time of voting without any additional registration.

Two aspects are to be particularly emphasized:

The legal membership in the Verein will be defined only by a membership token, the associated address, and will not require the registration of identity through KYC (with the exception of seven registered members, which is a condition for each Verein in Germany).
Votes which take place with the help of the associated voting methods (such as Governor mod) to be legally defined by the association rules as “continuous association meetings.”

If these two aspects are laid out in an association regulation, the Gnosis Safe can be legally integrated into a Verein without any additional infrastructure. The development period will be followed by an initial implementation and prototype of this legal structure that will be deployed as the framework for the DAO in conjunction with the land art project and exhibition.

Following this, terra0 will create a web and Gnosis Safe app (this could take the form as something similar to KALI with increased functionality) with a DAO template engine that will allow and enable a DAO to be incorporated under German law as a Verein. The app will facilitate the deployment of a Gnosis Safe, create the legal documents required for the registration of the Verein under German law, and will use the Gnosis Safe and associated voting method.

Milestones & timeline

2023

May–June: Completion of the legal framework and formation of the legal entity (= proof of concept [Payment #1 for the acquisition of the forest (175,000€) to the Verein]
June–July: Acquisition of the forest
June–March 2024: Technical development of the DAO structure, ecological survey, assemble advisory board, …
July–August: Development of the template engine for Gnosis safe [Payment #2 (20,000€) for the legal research and implementation of the template engine]