I would like to share the journey and challenges I have faced in working with Native American communities. My wife is Navajo, and as a Caucasian, it was important for me to gain acceptance within these communities. Initially, I organized an educational workshop focused on regenerative practices to raise awareness about soil degradation in Arizona, which is experiencing significant desertification. The workshop aimed to assist farmers and ranchers in rebuilding their soil and implementing holistic practices guided by the Allen Savory methods.

Over a period of three years, we lived and worked directly with the Navajo people. We hosted numerous workshops and received great interest from the communities. However, we soon discovered that there were significant obstacles in place. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) had been enforcing herd reductions for the past 40 years without achieving any resolution. Additionally, the support systems in place favored strict fertilizer regimens and monocrop systems, which did not align with traditional farming and ranching methods. Our approach challenged these norms.

To address these issues, I developed a membership program called "Stewards to The Earth" to represent the people's interests and advocate for reform and support from government agencies. My wife also registered a conservation organization called "Nizhoni Nahasdzaan" on the reservation to help address the challenges faced by the community in terms of degrading lands and lack of agency support.

Despite our efforts to advocate at various agency levels, we faced limited success. We even had meetings in the president's office, but unfortunately, never received a response. While we had the support of over 100 communities, securing the necessary funding to implement solutions such as temporary fencing for proper grazing methods and food production systems proved difficult.

In light of these challenges, I decided to focus on building upon our successes. I embarked on developing a cryptocurrency that could support conservation efforts. Around the same time, we entered the XPRIZE carbon removal competition as a carbon drawdown project. To bring my concept to life, I partnered with a skilled developer who shared a deep connection with the cause. While I focused on building the administrative support system, he worked on developing the minimum viable product (MVP). However, we realized that our initial model would not support large-scale adoption, leading us to pivot to a more robust model on AWS. Unfortunately, this change resulted in losing over half of our team and set us back by about a year in terms of scalability.

Currently, we are nearing the end of the four-year competition with a small team working on a voluntary basis. The project is struggling to secure funding and is in need of support. I have spent the past five months engaging with the web3 community, seeking assistance and exploring potential avenues to move forward.

Thank you for taking the time to learn about our journey. We remain committed to our vision and are hopeful for a brighter future.