A Brazilian company offers a way to help save the Amazon rainforest by selling non-fungible tokens.

A non-fungible token, or NFT, is based on a technology called blockchain, which is also used with digital money known as cryptocurrencies.

An NFT can be attached to digital artwork or other things that exist in digital form. The NFT can be used to provide proof that the pieces are real. While anyone can view the work, the purchaser has official ownership rights to the pieces.

The Brazilian company Nemus owns 410 square kilometers of Amazon rainforest. It started selling NFTs to allow buyers to back forest areas of different sizes. The money is used to help protect trees, regenerate cleared areas, and support environmental development.

NFT holders will not own the land itself. But they will be able to see important information about their protection. That information includes satellite images, License and other documentation, said Nemus founder Flavio de Meira Penna.

He said that Nemus had sold 10 percent of its first NFT offering for 8,000 hectares on the first day.

Penna told Reuters he believes the company’s NFTs will continue to sell quickly.

Land areas differ in size, from less than one hectare to 81 hectares. Buyers will be able to find the area of ​​land they are backing with online maps.

NFTs for the smallest land areas sell for $150 and the largest for $51,000, Penna said. It hopes to raise up to $5 million to buy an additional 2 million hectares of land in the state of Amazonas.

Penna said the money will also support environmental development efforts, such as harvesting açaí berries and Brazil nuts from local communities.

Each NFT comes with illustrations of an Amazonian plant or animal. The artwork is produced by content developer and publisher NFT Concept Art House of San Francisco, California.

Some critics have questioned the value of NFTs for environmental reasons. Blockchain technology requires great computing power, which increases the use of electricity that releases global warming. Greenhouse gases.

But Penna disagrees. He says that saving threatened areas of the Amazon far outweighs the environmental cost of the NFT trade.

I am Jonathan Evans.

Anthony Boadle reported this story for the Reuters news service. Jonathan Evans adapted this story for Learning English.

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words in this story

digital – adj. characterized by electronic technology and especially computerized

License – n permission to do something specially granted by a qualified authority

greenhouse gases – n any of several gaseous compounds such as carbon dioxide or methane that absorb infrared radiation, trapping heat in the atmosphere.