The First Regens are Indigenous, as they protect more than 80% of Earth's Biodiversity and stewards 1/4 of the world's most preserved surface. Their culture, ancestral knowledge and preservation of the living world are a real public good for humanity.

But despite their role, 1/3 of the world’s 900 million people in extreme poverty are Indigenous, while facing new acts of colonization on behalf of climate change. So how can we value the real work of Indigenous Peoples in preserving life, plurality and diversity of human cultures, without imposing our solutions on them?

Mycelia's core mission is to increase Indigenous Peoples agency with Web3, respecting their rights to self-determination, rewarding their role as a real public good for humanity and creating systemic impact.  

TL;DR

• Indigenous Public Goods (IPGs) create profound impact and need urgently to be funded. Mycelia will promote IPGs to the Web3 community and the Web3 to IPGs, with an initial focus on LATAM; 

• Building Trust between Indigenous Communities and Web3 is a top priority in a context of decolonisation. We want to on-board IPGs on Gitcoin Core Rounds while promoting Education program around Web3 and public goods; 

• Working to create an ecosystem to fund IPGs with Grant Stack/Allo Protocol, while researching sponsors and new funding mechanisms; 

• Exploring R&D on Indigenous Cyberspace to increase their agency such as Indigenous CoordiNation/Network-States, Digital Jurisdiction, Decentralised Indigenous Organisations (DIOs).

UPDATE : Mycelia has evolved in a more tangible form since our last and first Gitcoin Round. We've learned a lot and taken many steps forward. Here are the main progress and changes: 

• First, how did we use the funds ? With the funding of the last round, roughly 8,630.00$ coming from the Metacrisis, Climate Solutions, and Gitcoin Citizens Round, we funded : 
  • Indigenous R&D of Dr Avelin Kambiwá (Descolonizando o futuro, about the decolonisation of Indigenous Institutions); 
  • We supported Elias Oyxabaten, as an Indigenous leader and cryptowarrior working in educating Indigenous Communities about Web3;
  • We invested on one good laptop for editing (MacBook Pro second hand);
  • We covered travel expenses of different events related to our mission: 
    • NFT-Brazil in São Paulo; on June 2 to 3, 2023, where we presented Mycelia, and covered the trip of 3 Indigenous Peoples to speak on the main stage.
    • Eagle, Quetzal and Condor Summit in Canada, on June 12 to 17, 2023, to be part of a private gathering composed of 70 Indigenous Elders from all America and unveil the prophecy of the Eagle Quetzal and Condor. 
    • Funding the Commons & ETHcc in Paris, on July 15 to 21, 2023, to meet the Gitcoin/ReFi Community; 

• What are our progresses ? During the last three months: 

  • We created meaningful contact with Indigenous Representatives by expanding our network to the First Nations of North America; 
  • We started R&D on the topic of Decolonising Indigenous Institutions led by Dr Avelin Kambiwá (one report release soon);
  • We got verified on Giveth; 
  • We went deeper in our R&D around the Metacrisis by wearing the lenses of decolonization and wisdom to address systemic challenges; 
  • We reframed the Indigenous jurisdiction R&D into Indigenous Cyberspace; 
  • We released the C20-G20 India 2023 - Peoples and Voices of the World - Official Video to address Indigenous People messages and vision to G20 world decision makers ; 
  • We also explored HyphaDAO as a potential ecosystem for future development (but still too early for DAO);
  • Finally, tha last few weeks, we’re focusing on connecting Indigenous Projects to Gitcoin in line with our new strategy of creating impact first.

• What did we learn ? We learn that our vision will rise first by creating real impact for Indigenous Communities rather than developing only abstract concepts in R&D. We want to focus on impact first, co-create real stories with Indigenous Peoples, build trust between Web3 and IPGs, and leverage these experiences in the abstract layer of R&D. 

Building Trust By Sponsoring IPGs 🤝

IPGs (for Indigenous Public Goods) are public goods provided by Indigenous Peoples and allies such as cultural diversity, ecological knowledge, biodiversity conservation, social and community values, medicine knowledge, ancestral wisdom, native education, languages and more. In summary, public goods provided by Indigenous Peoples extend beyond their communities to have global impacts on the well being of humanity. 

Building Trust : we realized that the first thing to focus on is p2p trust between Indigenous Peoples and Web3. To achieve this, there's no shortcut other than showing Web3's direct impact.

This strategy will be first and foremost based on experience to support existing Indigenous projects willing to join Gitcoin and other future QF Grant programs such as Giveth. In this context, for the GG18 round, we got in touch with 8 projects and decided to support three of them for this GG18, namely : 

• Comitê Indígena Mineiro : Network of Indigenous Peoples operating for cultural preservation and women's autonomy mainly with ethnic groups of LATAM: Aranã, Kambiwá, Tukano, Macuxi, Pataxó, Pataxó hã hã hãe, Kamakã, Aymara , Quechua, Penom, Puri, Borun Kren, Xukuru Kariri, Manxineri, Yek'uana, Kambeba, Tupinambá, Kaxixó, Karinã, Enepá, Mapuche, Tikuna , Xavante e Carajá, Maxakali. 

• Living Library & FlorestaTV:  Ethnographic Docu-series to register and preserve the ancestral knowledge of Amazonian Indigenous Peoples. Working in this first serie with the Huni Kuin, Yawanawa, Ashaninka, Noke Kui in Brazilian Amazonia and future serie within Indigenous Communities of Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Chile, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Guyana and Suriname

• CiborguIndígena:  Artistic project directed by Paulo Desana, Indigenous artist working to fight against stereotypes and prejudices, promoting valorization and equality of Indigenous Peoples around technology. This project will work with twelve ethnic groups from Brazil, and will be revealed after validation by an Indigenous committee. 

There is also others IPGs that needs more preparation and which faced more difficulties to match with the current Eligibility Policy of GG18: 

• Levanta Zabele: Systemic constructions for Educational decentralized projects based on Indigenous cultures and knowledge;
• Traditional School of Huni Kuin Knowledge: systemic construction and digital project for the traditional School of Huni Kuin Knowledge. 
• Fish Multiplication : to create traditional fish pools so as to reach alimentary autonomy for communities 🙃 in Brasilian Amazonia;
• Solar Panel Autonomy: solar panels and electric autonomy inside Indigenous Communities of Brasilian Amazonia; 
• Varinawa Food Autonomy: Hens system to recover from alimentary autonomy losses;

What is sponsorship all about? 🧐 Web3 is still a niche and really hard to access for non-tech savvy people, so imagine for Indigenous Communities . These entry barriers are becoming less and less difficult to overcome, but there is still a long way to go, starting with the language itself. This is the reason why Mycelia is willing to sponsor Indigenous Projects that want to have access to Web3/QF/Gitcoin, but don’t have the knowledge AND/OR the trust to do so. Indeed, trust with technology is sometimes quite a sensitive issue for Indigenous Peoples, who have encountered tragic histories with exterrnal influences.

➡️ More info here on our Sponsoring Model

Mycelia wants to build trust between the two ecosystems by supporting IPGs to apply to Web3 Grant, starting with Gitcoin. This includes translation, Web3 wallet creation and support, communication/marketing (Twitter Space), web3 education subsidy and so on. This process is quite time-consuming, and we have no guarantee we will succeed to qualify the IPGs we sponsored, and this is the reason why we want in midterms run a dedicated grant only for Indigenous projects. 

Create an ecosystem for IPGs

The difficulty to on-board Indigenous projects in Web3 is one of the reasons we want to test in the future a Grant program with Grant Stack/Allo Protocol that enable a more friendly and inclusive on-boarding system for IPGs, while directing the attention of the Web3 community towards the importance of having cross-cultural solutions inclusive to them.  

➡️ Our full Mycelia IPGs Deck here

R&D on Indigenous Cyberspace (🏹, 🤖)

Mycelia GG17 was mainly focused on R&D. At this time we wrote a long article on Substack about the importance of having a new type of Indigenous Institutions (DIOs) connected to Web3. The objective of this R&D is to explore the possibilities of having an independent Indigenous Cyberspace, not territorially bound to a traditional jurisdiction, with concepts such as CoordiNation/network-states, DIOs, Digital Jurisdiction, and Digital Indigenous Economic Zone. By now co-creating an ecosystem, we will have greater capacity for research and experimentation in this field. 

Indigenous Cyberspace is a fascinating field to explore in the light of Web3 and expands our imagination on our collective stories where Indigenous wisdom could become the core of our social, ecological and economic layers. 

Use of Fund GG18

6k will support our basic work of the next quarter :

• Sponsoring/Assisting IPGs to apply on Gitcoin and Giveth Round;
• Working on the organisation to on-board IPGs on Web3 (wallet creation, requirements, cultural translation, education videos and so on); 
• Looking for sponsors and funding mechanism to work on a Grant Program focus on IPGs; 
• Developing the idea of IPGs as a fundamental primitives of the existing Public Good Market, and why it matters to fund them;
• Funding the current R&D of Dr Avelin Kambiwá and go deeper on the field of Indigenous Cyberspace.

10k will help us to develop our ecosystem: 

• Compensate peoples that help us to connect IPGs to Gitcoin and other QF platforms like Giveth; 
• Create a website for Mycelia : mycelia.xyz;
• Subsidize Web3 education program in order to gradually bring more autonomy to Indigenous partners. 

20k will help us to create more community engagement around the ecosystem: 

• Looking for a community manager;
• Exploring Indigenous NFT projects to fund Mycelia ecosystem and future grant on IPGs;

All funding over 20k will be pooled to bootstrap an Indigenous Grant Program on Allo Protocol. We are looking for 5k to 10k to fund our first IPGs Grant. 

Note that Mycelia doesn't have any other source of income than Gitcoin and Giveth for the moment. 

Core Team Biodiversity 🌳

Indigenous Network 🌎

List of the current Indigenous Ethnic Groups we are connected with, mainly from LATAM: 

• Algonquin
• Ashuar
• Aymara
• Desana
• Huni Kuin
• Iny Karajá
• Guarani
• Kambiwá
• Kichwa Sarayaku
• Kukuma
• Munduruku
• Noke Koi
• Paiter Surui
• Quechua
• Sami
• Sapara
• Shanenawa
• Shipibo
• Tupinambá
• Witoto
• Yawanawa

Note, at this stage only few ethnic groups of this list know about Mycelia, but they are all part of our close network mainly focus on LATAM.

Interested by Mycelia ?

If you read until here, it means you are interested by what's going on with Mycelia 👀 So feel free to add your contact details here (twitter + email + eth addresses) and DM us on Twitter, or send us an email to uni@mycelia.xyz, we will follow you.

Every small donation, even $1 coffee ☕️, can make a huge difference to help us supporting Indigenous Communities living in extreme poverty (i.e. people living with less than $1.90/day); small contribution, big impact 💪

We need support to bridge Web3 to Indigenous Communities and make the voices of Indigenous Peoples heard in Web3.

Mycelia Links

Our Linktr.ee Substack Mycelia Mycelia IPGs Deck Medium Mycelia C20-G20 India 2023 - Peoples and Voices of the World - Official Video Youtube Mycelia FlorestaTV

Further Links : (Music) The Mycelium is Listening (Books) Serie of books on Indigenous thinking selected by Stephen Reid Reconstructions of the Indigenous by Hanzi Freinacht (Film) The Last Forest, Director Luiz Bolognesi; (Film) Ex-Shaman, Director Luiz Bolognesi; (Film) Embrace of the Serpent, Ciro Guerra;