How Bitcoin Mining Saved an iconic African National Park Virunga National Park is home to half of Africa's biodiversity, and is one of the world's most important rainforests. It is situated in the Congo Basin where its forests remain the most intact among the world's major rainforests. Since 2012, Greenpeace has spent huge resources lobbying to save Virunga National Park from oil exploration, gathering over 100K signatures. Leonardo DiCaprio spent millions making a documentary on Virunga National Park in an attempt to save it. But after Covid, both efforts were on the ropes. The park had lost most of its tourist income. Unable to pay rangers who protected the park from poachers and people who chopped down trees to turn into charcoal for sale, it was in danger of closing. Sébastien Gouspillou, a Bitcoin miner spoke to the park director about the dire situation and realized that together that Virunga had a lot of stranded renewable hydro-energy that was being wasted. He proposed "we can monetize Virunga's stranded renewable energy to save the park." Incredibly, the operation was successful - a story of Bitcoin mining in Virunga has since been covered in many news outlets including MIT Technology Review, the BBC, Unherd, even the World Economic Forum. The money from Bitcoin mining has not only kept the park alive, but also allowed payments to widows of park wardens who were killed by poachers. Park director Emmanuel de Merode stated in one interview explicitly that "Virunga would have gone bust as a national park if not for Bitcoin mining." This is not an anomaly. In Bhutan, the entire post-Covid economy was saved by Bitcoin mining (source: https://x.com/DSBatten/status/2027381122787615179?s=20) , and in Costa Rica, an 60 Hectare eco-sanctuary was saved by Bitcoin mining after loss of income during the Covid-period (source: https://x.com/DSBatten/status/2008303334029984216) Increasingly, both environmentalists and scientists are realizing that Bitcoin mining doesn't just incentivize renewable energy generation (as established in 9 peer reviewed papers and several real-world case studies), it saves rainforests and economies around the world by turning previously wasted renewable energy into an asset for the community. Bitcoin represents not just a fairer and more equitable financial system, but a cleaner earth.(Daniel Batten)