Vealth · Ecological Work Appellations

A name that means place, method, and proof, or it means nothing.

This page is for anyone curious how a named place can be tied to the work done there, and for anyone who wants to propose a new named place. A shop on a sidewalk earns its name by being at that address, run by that owner, selling what it says it sells. Wine went further, hundreds of years ago: a bottle labeled Chablis is legally bound to a mapped place, a set of grapes, and a method, and someone checks. An Ecological Work Appellation (EWA) is that same idea applied to a piece of restoration work: a registered name for a place, good only for work that is actually done there, actually done to a named standard, and actually proven before it settles.

What an appellation is here

The United States' wine-region system (AVA, American Viticultural Area) binds a wine name to geography alone: draw a boundary, prove grapes came from inside it, done. It works, but it is the weak version of the idea; the label says where a wine is from and nothing about how it was made. France's AOC and Italy's DOC and DOCG, their controlled-name labels, bind a name to geography AND method AND some form of verification, and that stronger binding is what makes a name worth paying more for. An EWA follows the stronger pattern on purpose:

A name binds place and method and proof, or it binds nothing.

In practice, one registry entry ties together a boundary (a place), the work standards a job must actually be done under (a method, the same standards our work library already uses), a ladder of larger standards the work climbs toward (the Living Building Challenge, Michelin, or the UN Sustainable Development Goals), a proof rule, and a plain, machine-checkable test for whether any given job has earned the right to wear the name.

The registry

One appellation exists so far, drawn honestly from the board's own data rather than invented: the densest real cluster of posted restoration and hardening work on the board sits around Concow, Yankee Hill, and Feather Falls in Butte County, California, inside the 2020 North Complex fire scar. That cluster is the first name.

Petitioned

Butte County Fire-Scar Restoration

Post-fire recovery work in the residential and forest-edge parcels around Concow, Yankee Hill, and Feather Falls: replanting, hazard-tree clearing, erosion control, and home hardening against the next fire.

Boundary
A 15 km circle centered at 39.676, −121.393 (Concow / Yankee Hill / Feather Falls). It covers the fire-recovery work on the board in that area that is done under the standards below.
Method (standards served)
Civic safetyPollinator habitatHome exterior upkeepStorm drain repair and cleaningTree planting and establishmentWater efficiencyWatershed health
Work classes
Post-fire conifer seedling plantingTree plantingDefensible-space clearing right next to a homeHazard tree removalHazard tree surveyErosion control on burned slopes with straw wattlesPost-fire pollinator meadow plantingEmber-resistant mesh on ventsGutter guards to harden a home against fireCleaning gutters and downspoutsForest road drainage upkeepDriveway culvert debris-flow surveyDriveway culvert debris clearingTrail drainage upkeepReservoir shoreline debris cleanupRoadside litter removalLow-flow fixturesWater tank ash surveyFlushing and sealing water tanks after ashWater bill affordability surveyRepainting exterior trim
Standard ladder
UN goal 15, Life on LandUN goal 13, Climate ActionUN goal 6, Clean WaterRestoration leadership goal
Proof rule
Every job's own proof rule applies in full (for example a photo, a GPS waypoint and a labeled reading). On top of that, the appellation adds one clause: the proof must be anchored (its digital fingerprint, a SHA-256 hash, recorded onchain) before the job settles, never after.
Label rule
A job may wear this name only if at least 85% of its recorded work locations fall inside the boundary, AND its method matches one of the standards above, AND its proof is anchored before settlement. All three, every time. The check is automatic, and it names every clause that failed rather than returning a bare pass or fail.
Spec hash
46c0301f07acbcd884ae22aa050c2795bcc00dc10e92a790aacccfcf77f6b5cf
This is the SHA-256 fingerprint of the spec file data/vealth/ewa-specs/butte-county-fire-scar-restoration.json. It is on the weekly onchain anchor list, so a Sunday batch records it. Check whether it is recorded yet. The name moves from petitioned to registered only after it is recorded and its first jobs settle under it.

What this registry does not claim: it does not say the work behind this name has ecological outcome proof beyond the settled and anchored job record, it does not promise a price premium, and no job has yet been posted, claimed or settled under this name. A registered name is a rule a job can meet, not a guarantee that one has.

How a job earns the name

Three clauses, checked by machine, every one required. Fail any clause and the job still exists, it just may not display the name.

1

In the place

At least 85% of the job's recorded work locations fall inside the registered boundary, the same threshold the US wine-region rule uses for grapes sourced from inside a wine region.

2

By the method

The job's standard matches one of the standards the appellation registers work under, not just any standard the board carries.

3

With proof, first

Proof is anchored before the job settles, not backfilled after. A hash proves a record existed; it does not by itself prove the work happened, so this clause is one part of the rule, never the whole guarantee.

Petition a new appellation

Anyone may petition, the way anyone may petition the US Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau for a new American Viticultural Area. There is no fee and no form, because the process itself is the specification: write the five things below and send them. A well-written petition is most of the registry entry already.

  1. Name evidence. Proof the place is actually known by the name you propose, the way a neighborhood, a watershed, or a fire scar already carries a name on maps and in local speech, not a name invented for this page.
  2. Boundary rationale. A boundary on an ordinary public map (OpenStreetMap, a county map service, or the US Geological Survey) and the reasoning behind where it sits: what real cluster of place and work does it actually contain.
  3. Distinguishing ecological features. What sets this place apart from the ground next to it: a fire scar, a canopy deficit, a degraded watershed, a specific hazard or need that gives the place its own character.
  4. Method and standard ladder. Which of the work library's standards the work here is actually done under (its method_refs), and which larger ladder it climbs toward (the Living Building Challenge, Michelin, or a UN Sustainable Development Goal).
  5. Nested-appellation distinctness. If the proposed boundary sits inside or overlaps an existing appellation, explain how the two are both consistent and genuinely distinct.

Send those five things to [email protected]. There is no submission form and no automatic approval; a person reads every petition. If a petition is accepted, the name is added to the registry with the status petitioned. It moves to registered once its spec is anchored and its first jobs have actually settled under it.

The machine shape, for an agent drafting a petition

An agent may draft the registry entry directly and attach it to the email; a human still reviews and adds it. The schema:

{
  "id": "lowercase-slug",
  "name": "Human-readable name",
  "boundary": { "kind": "circle", "lat": 0, "lng": 0, "radiusKm": 0 },
  "work_classes": ["work_type_value", "..."],
  "method_refs": ["standard_value", "..."],
  "standard_ladder": ["SDG 15, Life on Land", "..."],
  "proof_rule": "plain description of the proof required",
  "label_rule": "the same three-clause rule this page describes",
  "status": "petitioned",
  "petitioned_at": "YYYY-MM-DD",
  "spec_sha256": null
}

method_refs may never be empty. A boundary with no bound method is geography only, the weak pattern this whole registry exists to avoid.

Honest by design