Many observers, proved and checked
People with phones survey fixed plots, season after season. Each find is signed by the phone that made it, validated by a person and published only once it is safe to.
A find, from field to map
- The agent picks the plots. Plots are fixed and chosen in advance, so nobody can walk to where the species are and report more nature than is there.
- A surveyor records a find. The app crops the photo to the subject, refuses it if a face is in frame, strips everything but the image, and suggests a species. The surveyor confirms, chooses another or says they are not sure.
- The phone signs it. Each find is signed with a key the phone certified at the start of the survey, and chained to the find before, so nothing can be added, removed or reordered later without it showing.
- It is sealed to Earth Swarm. The photo and precise position go only to Earth Swarm's evidence store. The Stringer network that pays the surveyor holds a receipt: a hash, a time and a signature, never the photo, the species or the position.
- A person validates it. A species suggestion from a model is a suggestion. An ecologist or a trained second observer decides.
- It appears here, coarsened. At least 72 hours after it was made, on a grid, never as an exact point. Sensitive species go to a much coarser grid, without photos.
Birdsong recording is coming, and is not part of the first version.
Biodiversity credits, done properly
Outcome, not effort
A credit certifies that a piece of land became measurably better than it would otherwise have been, and will stay so. Survey work does not create that; it proves it. Surveyors are paid for completing the protocol, never for what they find.
Independent verification
An accredited verifier under the project's standard decides whether uplift happened. Earth Swarm is paid when credits sell, so Earth Swarm never decides issuance. Our data makes the verifier's job cheaper; it never replaces them.
A buffer pool
A share of every issuance, starting at 20 per cent, is withheld and never sold. It is cancelled against reversals such as fire, flood, disease or a change of owner. The database refuses an issuance whose buffer is too small.
Landowners get the majority
The people who do the work on the land, and carry a commitment that can last decades, receive the largest share of each sale. Each project publishes its split.
Contribution claims
Buyers claim a contribution to nature recovery at a named place, with approved wording. Not an offset, and not a licence to damage somewhere else.
No double counting
One issuance per project, period and standard. Serial numbers never overlap. Land registered for Biodiversity Net Gain cannot also sell voluntary credits for the same period. All of this is enforced by the registry's database, not by good intentions.
Checkable by anyone
When a monitoring period closes, Earth Swarm publishes a Merkle root over the signed receipts of every find made in it. A verifier given one find years later can prove it was part of the record at the time, and that it has not been changed by a single byte.
Every issuance and retirement is in the registry, with its serials, standard and verifier.