---
title: nature is the customer
canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/nature-is-the-customer
markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/nature-is-the-customer.md
subtitle: "millions of rivers, species and places could hold an account. a few thousand do"
category: natural-capital
---

# nature is the customer

*millions of rivers, species and places could hold an account. a few thousand do*

The Colorado River carried water for millions of years before anyone kept books. It has an account now, `colorado-river.basin`, and it never needed one. The river, the fish in it and the towns that drink from it exist whether or not anyone ever opens one. [**Ensurance**](/?from=guide) is how money can reach them. It is not what they are.

**What does nature as an account holder mean?** Nature as an account holder means a river, a species or a place has an account in its own name: a token with a wallet attached, held by keepers who sign for it. Money can be paid to the place's own account. The account does not own the place, speak for it, or make it a legal person.

This is the accounts side of [nature's balance sheet](/guide/natures-balance-sheet?from=guide).

:::johnson
**the oldest population with no account was never counted as customers.**

Rivers, species and places could number in the millions. On 14 November 2026, 2,095 names were minted, 86 accounts had a wallet deployed and 3 ran a program that week.

[see the groups those accounts sit in →](/groups?from=guide)
:::

## who could hold an account

A bank counts people and companies. People are here for scale. The rows below them are who a bank was never built to count. Each row is an order of magnitude, not a forecast.

| subject | sourced count | what the count covers |
|---|---|---|
| People | About 8.2 billion, US Census Bureau projection for July 2026 | Estimates vary by source and date. One person need not mean one account |
| Catalogued species | 2,276,639, Catalogue of Life Base release of 14 October 2026 | A dated catalogue with its own scope, not a census of all life. The Extended release lists 2,504,814 under a different scope |
| Estimated species, including undescribed | About 8.7 million, give or take 1.3 million (Mora et al., 2011) | An estimate for eukaryotes only. It leaves out most microbial life |
| Cities | More than 12,000 with at least 50,000 people, UN World Urbanization Prospects 2025 | Urban settlements under one standard definition, not every town or village |
| River reaches | 8,477,883, HydroRIVERS | Mapped segments averaging 4.2 km, not 8.5 million named rivers |
| Bioregions | 185, One Earth Bioregions 2023 | One framework. Others draw the lines differently |
| Terrestrial ecoregions | 846, RESOLVE Ecoregions 2017 | Land only, one dataset version |

Do not add the column. The rows overlap: an ecoregion sits inside a bioregion, a reach inside a river, a city on both. Watersheds, parcels, herds and single trees add finer grains still, and their counts depend on where you draw the line ([place, purpose, people at any size](/guide/place-purpose-people-at-any-size?from=guide)).

The table shows only that each kind of subject a bank never counts runs into the hundreds, thousands or millions before you draw a finer grain. It says nothing about deposits, volume or adoption.

## one subject can need several accounts

A count of subjects is not a count of accounts. The Colorado River can be one place. It can also be a headwater reach, a delta, the cold water a native fish needs, and the compact of people who manage its flows.

Those are different mandates with different keepers. A place account addresses the living thing. A purpose account gathers the places that do one job. A people account belongs to those doing the work ([a place and a purpose can hold an account](/guide/a-place-and-a-purpose-can-hold-an-account?from=guide)).

So the same river can sit behind several accounts, one more reason the table cannot be summed.

## why a bank never opened these accounts

No banker decided against the river. The form has no place for it.

In the United States, as in most countries, a bank must collect a name, a date of birth, an address and an identification number before it opens an account for a person, and verify them. A river has a name and nothing else on that list.

Then there is cost. An account needs staff, a compliance file, statements and often a branch within reach. A bank earns that back from balances and fees. Picture a stretch of creek with forty dollars a year arriving. It would never cover the file.

The usual workaround is a nonprofit or an agency that holds money on nature's behalf. Much good land is kept that way. But even a gift restricted to one place sits on that organization's books, under its name. The place has no books of its own.

None of this is a complaint about people who have no bank account. The World Bank's Global Findex 2025 reports that 79% of adults worldwide now have one, and reaching the rest is serious work in its own right. Rivers are a different case. No bank was built to open one.

## what changes when the account is a token

On a public ledger, an account for a place starts as a token minted under a group's name, such as a river under `.basin`. The token is the identity. A wallet address is tied to that token, and the wallet is put on the network only when it is first needed. This is a tokenbound account ([what a tokenbound account is](/guide/what-a-tokenbound-account-is?from=guide)).

Opening one takes a transaction, not a branch and a compliance file. That changes the cost of opening, which is why that creek with forty dollars a year can have books. Someone still has to keep it, and moving money in and out still costs something.

It is worth being exact about what did not change:

- **Keepers hold the key.** Whoever holds an account's token holds its key. A river cannot sign, so a person or organization keeps the account in its name, and people and AI can work for it under its mandate.
- **It is not a bank account.** No charter stands behind it, and it takes no deposits and pays no interest. It carries no deposit insurance. Ensurance is not a bank ([what a nature bank could be](/guide/what-a-nature-bank-could-be?from=guide)).
- **The rules for people still apply to people.** When a keeper cashes out through a bank or a regulated exchange, that keeper is identified like anyone else.
- **The account is not the river.** It cannot stop a diversion or own a water right. The river's money is on the ledger. The river is not.
- **An account is not a new source of money.** Someone who depends on the place still has to pay it ([can an animal have a bank account](/guide/can-an-animal-have-a-bank-account?from=guide)).

## how many hold one today

Few. Here are the figures, read from the protocol's public stats and account list between 13:02 and 13:10 UTC on 14 November 2026.

| measure | figure |
|---|---|
| Accounts | 2,095 |
| Groups with accounts | 25 |
| Accounts with a wallet deployed | 86 |
| Accounts that ran a program in the last 7 days | 3 |
| Policies on natural assets | 26, worth $36,832 at today's price (not money received) |
| Coin trading volume, 24 hours, as reported by indexers | About $5 |

Of 2,095 accounts, 86 have a wallet and 3 did anything automated in a week. Most of the others are names.

The public group list shows where they sit. Three groups hold 1,658 of the 2,095: `.ecoregion` with 844, `.basin` with 624 and `.bioregion` with 190. The `.ecoregion` group credits the RESOLVE map, which counts 846, and holds 844 names. The `.bioregion` group credits One Earth, which counts 185, and holds 190. Neither is a clean copy of its map.

A name on a list is a seat reserved, not a working account. Early in the build, most accounts are kept by the people who set them up, not yet by a keeper close to each place.

The 86 wallets come from the account list, which shows 2,085 accounts: the stats count every minted name, 10 more than the list. For 53 of them, wallet status is not yet recorded.

The ratio today: millions of possible holders, about two thousand names, fewer than a hundred wallets, three accounts at work this week. The rails could carry far more. The work has not yet earned it.

## groups are names, not treasuries

It is tempting to call the 25 groups branches. The comparison holds for one thing only. A group organizes names and decides who may mint under it, the way `.org` organizes addresses.

A group holds no money. It creates no deposits and has no authority over the people who live in the place it names. Money sits in accounts, and each account has its own keepers and its own books ([what is an ensurance group](/guide/what-is-an-ensurance-group?from=guide)).

A watershed group that wants a shared fund needs an actual account, with people responsible for it.

## where to start

If you keep a place, [browse the groups](/groups?from=guide) and see whether your river, ecoregion or species already has a name waiting. If not, you can [open an account](/agents/create?from=guide) for it.

Land trusts and ranchers can see [what we do with land stewards](/solutions/land-stewards?from=guide&topic=natures-balance-sheet). A watershed council or a compact can see [how a regional body uses accounts](/solutions/regional-collaboratives?from=guide&topic=natures-balance-sheet). A funder asking where a grant could land can start with [foundations](/solutions/foundations?from=guide&topic=natures-balance-sheet), or [talk to us](/contact?from=guide&topic=natures-balance-sheet).

Next in the series: one river's account, read line by line, in [what a river does with an account](/guide/what-a-river-does-with-an-account?from=guide).

## frequently asked questions

### what does nature as an account holder mean?

A river, species or place has an account in its own name on a public ledger. The people or organization holding its token sign for it. Payments go to the place's own account, on its own books, not into an organization's general fund.

### does an account make a river a legal person?

No. Legal standing comes from courts and legislatures. An account is a ledger and a wallet. It gives a river a place to be paid, and no rights.

### who controls the money in a river's account?

Whoever holds the account's token, a person or an organization keeping it in the place's name. It is never the river. Early in the build, most accounts are kept by the people who set them up. If the keepers change, the token changes hands and the account's history stays.

### how many accounts exist today?

On 14 November 2026 there were 2,095 accounts in 25 groups. 86 had a wallet deployed and 3 ran a program that week. Most are reserved names.

## sources

[US Census Bureau, World Population Day](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/world-population-day.html) — International Database projection of 8.2 billion people in July 2026

[Catalogue of Life, data download](https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/download) — Base release 2026-10-14, 2,276,639 species; Extended release 2026-10-16, 2,504,814 species

[Mora et al., How many species are there on Earth and in the ocean?, PLOS Biology, 2011](https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001127) — About 8.7 million eukaryotic species, standard error 1.3 million

[UN Population Division, World Urbanization Prospects 2025, FAQ](https://population.un.org/wup/faqs) — Estimates for over 12,000 cities of 50,000 inhabitants or more

[HydroSHEDS, HydroRIVERS](https://www.hydrosheds.org/products/hydrorivers) — 8.5 million river reaches, average length 4.2 km

[HydroRIVERS technical documentation v1.0](https://data.hydrosheds.org/file/technical-documentation/HydroRIVERS_TechDoc_v10.pdf) — 8,477,883 reaches; inclusion thresholds

[One Earth, Bioregions 2023](https://www.oneearth.org/bioregions-2023/) — 185 bioregions

[UNEP-WCMC, Ecoregions 2017 © Resolve](https://resources.unep-wcmc.org/products/WCMC_PT023) — 846 terrestrial ecoregions

[World Bank, The Global Findex 2025](https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/globalfindex) — 79% of adults globally have an account

[US Code of Federal Regulations, 31 CFR 1020.220](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-31/subtitle-B/chapter-X/part-1020/subpart-B/section-1020.220) — Customer identification program requirements for banks

[ensurance protocol stats](https://ensurance.app/api/protocol/stats) — Accounts, policies and activity, read 14 November 2026, 13:02 UTC

[ensurance groups](https://ensurance.app/api/groups) — 25 groups and their sizes, read 14 November 2026, 13:02 UTC

[ensurance account list](https://ensurance.app/api/accounts) — 2,085 listed accounts, 86 with a wallet deployed, 53 unrecorded, read 14 November 2026, 13:10 UTC

## the series

1. [nature's balance sheet](/guide/natures-balance-sheet?from=guide) — **Read first:** Everyone wants to put nature on the balance sheet. A new kind of institution gives nature its own, and does a bank's work on two sides
2. [nature is the customer](/guide/nature-is-the-customer?from=guide) — Millions of rivers, species and places could hold an account. A few thousand do
3. [what a river does with an account](/guide/what-a-river-does-with-an-account?from=guide) — Personhood gives a river standing. An account gives it a ledger. Here is one, read live
4. [financing nature and the people who depend on it](/guide/financing-nature-and-the-people-who-depend-on-it?from=guide) — A bank lends. This side of the institution funds a place from what moves through it
5. [who holds the keys to a river's account](/guide/who-holds-the-keys-to-a-rivers-account?from=guide) — The institution never pools the balance with its own money. Whoever holds an account's token holds the key, and people and AI work under them