Marine Conservationist Launches Carbon Positive Web3 Campaign To Fund 70 Tonnes of Ocean Plastic Removal

Ocean Collective, an environmental nonprofit organization, today announces it’s teaming up with marine conservationist Madison Stewart, known as “Shark Girl Madison” and renowned digital artist John Boshwell (a.k.a. “Melodysheep”) to deploy their first Web3 initiative and fund up to 70 tonnes of ocean plastic removal.

Minted on the carbon-neutral Polygon network, the digital artwork collection, titled “The Museum of Extinction,” comprises 10 individual video art pieces, each portraying an endangered marine species from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. Three exclusivity tiers with associated utilities of the digital collectibles will be available on the industry-leading digital marketplace, OpenSea from April 19th 16:00 CET.

The funds raised from the digital collectibles series will be invested into projects with direct ocean impact measures. This will include removing up to 70 tonnes of plastic from beaches and oceans to protect marine species.

Madison Stewart (Shark Girl Madison) with her renowned standing in shark species conservation will bring valuable insight and experience into tackling key marine conservation issues head-on. Madison has been a fierce shark activist since the age of 14, and has been at the forefront of the effort to protect what she sees as “her family.” She employs an original approach to conservation, providing an alternate source of income to shark fishermen through ecotourism.

As well as removing up to 70 tonnes of plastic from beaches and oceans, the project’s ‘carbon positive’ strategy will see the purchase of marine carbon credits, ensuring that every artwork minted sequesters more carbon than the project creates.

Certain blockchain technologies, cryptocurrencies and generative digital art projects have been subject to criticism due to their energy consumptive nature. As part of their their commitment to a carbon positive project, Ocean Collective have chosen Polygon, the Ethereum scaling platform onboarding millions to Web3, to mint the artwork — owing to Polygon’s continued focus on sustainability.

Polygon announced in April its strategy to achieve carbon negativity by 2022, along with launching a Green Manifesto pledging $20 million toward improving sustainable best practices throughout the Polygon ecosystem.

The unique artworks were created by John Boshwell (Melodysheep), who with over 2 million followers and 250 million video views to date has grown an impressive fanbase for his photorealistic 3D animated films and futuristic digital illustrations.

The Museum of Extinction will also be the first such project to fund a premium documentary series about ocean activism, titled ‘Rise of the Ocean Tribe’, that will center around Madison Stewart. Madison was featured in Rob Stewart’s Sharkwater Extinction, the Smithsonian Channel documentary ‘Shark Girl’, ‘BLUE, and ‘Envoy: Shark Cull’. The documentary series will be co-produced by Eyeforce, an Amsterdam based award-winning film production company with roots in the water and adventure-sports industry.

Bob van de Gronde, director at Ocean Collective, said: “The unique aspect of this project is that artwork sales will be connected to direct impact measures, as well as an inspirational documentary series about ocean activism. NFT technology is an exciting new way to fund environmental initiatives such as these, while offering holders a potential value increase of their assets as the film project evolves.”.

The Museum of Extinction is set to be an industry first project, drawing together activists, digital artists, filmmakers and Web3 industry leaders to showcase how blockchain technology can be harnessed to bring meaningful change to conservation projects worldwide, impacting sustainability and playing a part in shaping the future for all of us.