The Cartagena Turtles Club

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are digital tokens on a blockchain that each represent something unique, such as a digital piece of art, a special in-game item, a rare trading card collectible, or any other distinct digital or physical asset. NFTs can be considered a “certificate of authenticity” issued by the original creator on a blockchain, providing cryptographic proof of ownership.

As well as helping offset your carbon footprint and contributing to projects to restore mangrove forests and save turtle habitats in Cartagena, each of these unique carbon negative NFTs gives you access to The Cartagena Turtles Club with “Cartagena LOVES you” benefits throughout the city on future visits to Cartagena.

“Blue carbon” refers to carbon dioxide stored in coastal wetlands, including mangroves, seagrasses and salt marshes. These ecosystems have a disproportionately high carbon sequestration and storage capacity compared to terrestrial forests and other ocean ecosystems. Although they cover less than 2% of total ocean area, mangroves, seagrasses and salt marshes account for half of the carbon stored in oceans due to their ability to draw down atmospheric carbon and trap it for long periods of time. Scaling up blue carbon activities is therefore critical to solve the climate emergency.

A “gourmet” blue carbon project is one that also has a social as well as an environmental impact. The mangroves restoration project supported by The Cartagena Turtles Project will have a positive impact on 6 of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals making it very tasty indeed.

A carbon offset is a reduction or removal of emissions of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases made in order to compensate for emissions made elsewhere.

Offsets are measured in tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO2e). One ton of carbon offset represents the reduction or removal of one ton of carbon dioxide or its equivalent in other greenhouse gases.

Projects like the Cartagena Mangroves Project sequester carbon and store it in mangrove forests which helps balance out global greenhouse emissions in Cartagena and beyond.

In short, yes, blockchain and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and NFTs all have a large carbon footprint however, The Cartagena Turtles Club is not going to launch a carbon backed NFT project without using the most energy efficient process available. As a result all of the NFTs minted by Carbon Creatures have been developed on the Polygon Network (formerly Matic), which is able to reduce the emissions normally associated with minting NFTs on Ethereum by almost 99%. While some NFT’s claim to be carbon neutral (through donations), Carbon Creatures NFT’s are in fact – hundreds of times carbon negative!

The reason is its size – spanning 57 hectares. Despite its significant potential for positive change in our urban setting, it doesn’t meet the size requirements for funding the registration process with major registries. Consequently, we’ve chosen to offer alternatives like “mangrove seedlings planted” and other impactful actions instead of tonnes of CO2 to support our cause.