--- title: what a share can carry canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/what-a-share-can-carry markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/what-a-share-can-carry.md subtitle: "money, a measured result, and a place at the table — for one forest, not for everything" category: ensurance --- # what a share can carry *money, a measured result, and a place at the table — for one forest, not for everything* A forest above a city's reservoir does several jobs at once. It holds snow into spring, slows what melts, keeps soil on the slope and out of the intake, and shelters whatever lives there. None of those jobs shows up on an invoice until the forest stops doing them. **Ecological value** is the condition of a living system and the work it does: forest health, water that leaves clean and on time, soil that stays put, habitat that holds. It is measured in the system's own units first. A dollar figure can translate it for a budget. The dollar figure is not the value. The forest and the snow that become a city's drinking water exist whether or not anyone buys a policy or a certificate. Ensurance is how the people who already receive that water share the payment, the measurement, and the rules that keep the forest working. The share is not the forest. ## ecological value is condition, not a price tag Denver Water puts it simply on its own forest page: the city's drinking water starts as rain and snow that passes through mountains and trees. Part of that water drains through the South Platte River watershed into Strontia Springs and Cheesman reservoirs. In 1996 and 2002, the Buffalo Creek and Hayman fires burned 150,000 acres of that watershed. The ecological value of the forest had never appeared as a line item. It appeared afterward, as flash floods through the burn scars, sediment in the reservoirs, and repair work around both. That is the problem with judging a forest by what it would sell for. A stand of trees above a reservoir may be worth little as timber and a great deal as the reason the treatment plant runs clean. Ecological value is the second thing. It lives in condition and function, and it has to be measured that way before anyone can pay for it sensibly. ## three kinds of value on one forest The same forest carries more than one kind of value, and different people receive each kind. | value | on a source-water forest | who feels it first | |---|---|---| | ecological | Forest health, water yield and quality, soil held on the slope, habitat | The forest, the river, and whoever measures them | | financial | Money the partners put in for thinning, planting, and care, and money that comes back to the work and to the holders on that share | Treasurers, funders, capital providers | | social | A town, a forest district, a utility, and a family with land above the reservoir all depending on the same forest, none able to be its only steward | Residents, ratepayers, the people at the table | The social row is the one that gets skipped. It is not a sentiment. It is the plain fact that the forest's benefit is already split across people who did not choose each other, and that the work gets done when they carry it together. From Forests to Faucets, the partnership Denver Water began with the U.S. Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Region in 2010, is that row in practice. The Colorado State Forest Service and the Natural Resources Conservation Service joined too, which lets treatments reach non-federal and private land as well as national forest. Four partners, one forest, work none of them would get done at the same scale alone. ## the share is how it gets held Everyone at that table can already see the three kinds of value. What most of them lack is a simple way to hold a portion of it: to put money in, point to what the money did, and stand next to the others who did the same. Ensurance instruments are that implementation. A **certificate** is a share you hold with other people in one project or one natural asset. The infrastructure is flexible on purpose. The same share can carry and receive financial value, ecological value, and social value, in whatever mix that project needs. A utility might hold it mostly for the water. A capital provider might hold it for the money routed to holders on that share. A town might hold it because its name belongs next to the forest it drinks from. It is one share in every case, and each holder reads the part that matters to them. For readers who work onchain: certificates use a token standard (ERC-1155) built so that many people can hold amounts of the same item. A share can carry the money, the measurement, and a say in the work. This post covers the first two and the social stake. The say is the next post. :::johnson **a share of this forest, not a share of everything.** Every ensurance certificate belongs to one agent: one place, one community or organization, or one purpose. Its money, its measurement, and the people who hold it stay with that asset. [see the south platte river agent →](/south-platte-river.basin?from=guide) ::: ## how a measurement gets split **MRV** stands for measurement, reporting, and verification. Someone measures what the work did, reports it, and someone else checks it. On a source-water forest that could be acres treated in a zone of concern, seedlings planted in a burn scar, or a stand re-surveyed after a season of thinning. In ensurance, that measurement sits on the certificate of the asset or agent whose share funded the work. The shares of that certificate are how the recorded result is allocated among the people who hold it. Ten shares of a hundred is a tenth of that result. If a season's verified work were 400 acres (a round number for illustration, not a real figure), ten of a hundred shares would be allocated a tenth of that reported result — 40 of the 400 acres, on paper, not a claim on the ground. On a policy that portion can be an ecological claim on titled land. On a line it is a portion of the agent's reported work, not a claim on those acres. The allocation stops at the edge of that certificate. A share of one forest is not a share of another project's measurement. Each certificate maps to exactly one agent, and that rule is what keeps a measurement honest: it has one place to live and one set of holders to divide it. ## policy or line There are two kinds of certificate, and the difference is who holds title. Where a landowner owns the ground and works with the protocol, the certificate is a **policy**, and it can carry ecological claims on that specific land. Where the living system crosses many owners, as a watershed or a river does, the certificate is a **line**. A line carries the measured work of the agent that stewards it, not a claim on anyone's parcel. Neither one is title to the dirt. Buying a certificate never hands the buyer the land. The South Platte is line territory: one river, many owners and agencies, all of them already sharing it. It has a live place agent on ensurance, [south-platte-river.basin](/south-platte-river.basin?from=guide). No certificate is minted on it yet. The next post names the line that would be. ## where the money goes Financial value moves through **proceeds**: the routing attached to a share that sends money to the work and to the people written into it. Splits divide incoming money by set percentages. Streams release it over time. Each project sets its own. That is a narrower promise than a dividend, and it should be. Holding a share does not mean a check arrives on its own. Who receives what, whether the crew doing the thinning, the nursery supplying seedlings, or holders written into the split, is decided for that share, and the routing is public. You can see how it works on [proceeds](/proceeds?from=guide). None of this retires the insurance policy that pays after a fire. Fire still belongs in these forests. The Forest Service's own aim for the treatments is fewer large, catastrophic fires, not zero fire. Care on the forest can shrink the loss a policy has to cover. The check for the loss that still comes stays real and still necessary. ## what a share does not carry The easiest way to overclaim a share is to let it stand for everything. It doesn't. - **No separate social token.** Social value is who holds the share together and why. It is not a new coin. - **No slice of the whole protocol's data.** The measurement belongs to that certificate's asset or agent. - **No title.** A certificate is not a deed, and a line makes no claim on any one owner's land. - **No promise the forest won't burn.** The work lowers the odds of the catastrophic fire. It does not end fire. What it does carry is enough: a portion of the money, a portion of the recorded result, and a place at the same table as everyone else who depends on that forest. ## frequently asked questions ### what is ecological value? Ecological value is the condition of a living system and the work it does: forest health, clean and reliable water, soil held in place, habitat. It is measured in the system's own units first. A dollar figure can translate it for a budget, but the price is a bridge to the value, not the value itself. ### can a share carry more than money? Yes. An ensurance certificate can carry financial value (money in, and money routed to the work and to holders on its split), ecological value (the measured result of the work on that asset), and social value (the people and organizations who hold the same forest together). Social value is not a separate token. ### how is a measurement split across holders? By the shares of that one certificate. The measured, reported, and verified result sits on the certificate's asset or agent, and each holder's portion matches their portion of the shares. Ten shares of a hundred is a tenth. A share of one forest does not include another project's measurement. ## sources [Denver Water — Building a better forest](https://www.denverwater.org/tap/building-better-forest) — where Denver's drinking water starts, the From Forests to Faucets partners and start year, the Buffalo Creek and Hayman fires, zones of concern, and the Forest Service's aim for treatments ## the series Six posts on a shared benefit and a shared payment: the original pool, the forest behind a city's water, and the share that holds both. 1. [what insurance actually is](/guide/what-insurance-actually-is?from=guide) 2. [the pool pays the disaster](/guide/the-pool-pays-the-disaster?from=guide) 3. [the benefit was already shared](/guide/the-benefit-was-already-shared?from=guide) 4. [you don't have to shoulder it alone](/guide/you-dont-have-to-shoulder-it-alone?from=guide) 5. [what a share can carry](/guide/what-a-share-can-carry?from=guide) — this post 6. [who governs a natural asset](/guide/who-governs-a-natural-asset?from=guide) Next: who governs a natural asset, on who sets the rules for a share and how you take one. For the longer Lloyd's history, read [shared risk reduction: from lloyd's coffee house to ensurance syndicates](/guide/shared-risk-reduction-pooling-resilience?from=guide).