The Great Barrier Reef to be sold as an NFT in the future

The Great Barrier Reef in Australia is set to become an NFT (non-fungible token) spearheaded by Marine Biologist Brett Kettle. With this project, anyone can own a piece of the reef as an NFT to revolutionise the conservation of this underwater ecosystem. 

Kettle, alongside a team of other marine biologists, plans to produce a three-dimensional photo-realistic model that they then plan to sell as an NFT per hectare of coral under the name of The Corals Project.  

With an underwater camera that captures half a million photographs a day, Kettle’s team plans to identically remap the coral beds into a virtual world. 

‘You can swim around it with an avatar in your virtual reality headset or explore it through your computer or mobile phone,’ Kettle said to ABC.net.

‘We’re trying to divorce ourselves from the notion of something that’s simply artistic; we’re trying to develop something that better suits the ecosystem,’ he added.

The project is in collaboration with ReeFI-DAO, an emerging crypto agency of conservationists. All the funds from the NFT sales are planned to be used for the on-ground conservation efforts of the Great Barrier Reef. 

Professor Ian Atkinson, tech expert and director of the eResearch Centre at James Cook University, said that the digital NFT ownership of the pieces of these corals can be a great tool to help people engage in conservation efforts in their little way. 

‘If people can feel connected to natural assets they otherwise wouldn’t visit, it will enable them to better understand those environments and protect them,’ Cook said. 

Moreover, the project will not only benefit the Great Barrier Reef. According to Cook, there’s international interest in tracking forest ecosystems through the creation of NFTs for individual trees. 

‘It gives the individual who buys into it a sense of connection and association,’ told Cook. 

The aim of the Corals NFT Project

This effort by Australians to conserve the Great Barrier Reef through NFT digital remote modelling is created to increase awareness of the danger it faces.

‘These NFTs will be your window onto the reef, but they will do so much more,’ said the team on the official website of the Corals Project. 

Moreover, the goal is to also build an active community of people that care about the ref and the environmental issues it faces. This will then help in speeding up the action to address climate change in a fun, informative and proactive approach. 

NFTs have been on the rise since Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 days sold for US$69 million on Cristy’s auction in 2020. Plenty of projects using this kind of crypto asset have sprung since then. 

This isn’t the only non-profit project that makes use of NFT. Currently, there are fundraising efforts for causes like Mental Health America (Blazed Cats), Orangutan Outreach (Bored Ape Yacht Club) and Food for Life Global (Hevey) that sells NFT assets to raise money. 

Find out more about these NFT efforts as you read through cryptocurrency news and updates here at BTC Post.