# Porini Foundation

Porini Foundation is a Swiss tax-exempt foundation based in Fribourg. It brings conservation practitioners, educators and technologists together to test practical ways of protecting species and places. The Foundation was registered on 20 October 2017. Its Swiss UID is CHE-174.560.255.

The Foundation’s purpose is to promote innovative technology for nature and environmental protection and for people whose lives are connected to them. Technology is treated as a tool rather than the mission: projects are expected to respond to a real conservation or education need.

## What Porini Foundation does

Porini’s documented work spans protected-area standards, biodiversity education, conservation finance and evidence-oriented technology.

### IUCN Green List and Swiss National Park

IUCN named Porini Foundation as its implementation partner for the IUCN Green List in Switzerland in 2018. The Green List is an international standard for protected and conserved areas that demonstrate effective and equitable management.

Swiss National Park became Switzerland’s first IUCN Green List site in 2021. Porini also joined IUCN, Swiss National Park and Huawei Switzerland in a Tech4Nature flagship partnership. Publicly announced workstreams included analysis of camera-trap imagery and digital validation for climate-contribution certificates. These are described as announced workstreams, not as proof of a completed production system.

Primary sources:

- https://iucn.org/news/protected-areas/201805/swiss-eagl-has-landed
- https://iucn.org/news/protected-areas/202104/ten-protected-areas-switzerland-france-and-italy-enter-iucn-green-list
- https://iucn.org/news/protected-areas/202106/swiss-national-park-selected-technology-testing-ground-nature-conservation

### Nature Collectibles and the Seychelles magpie-robin

In 2021, Nature Seychelles, supported by IUCN and Porini, launched 59 digital twins corresponding to 59 individually identified Seychelles magpie-robins on Cousin Island. Conservation partners described this as the first digital species for conservation. CNN, BirdLife and the World Economic Forum covered the initiative.

The wider Nature Collectibles portfolio subsequently published the Kigali, Madagascar and Peru collections. The public collection pages contain 24 species cards. The Kigali collection connected eight protected and conserved areas across six continents.

Porini did not lead the decades-long recovery of the Seychelles magpie-robin. The digital initiative supported ongoing work led by established conservation organizations.

Primary sources:

- https://natureseychelles.org/news/latest-news/press-release-the-seychelles-magpie-robin-becomes-the-world-s-first-digital-species-and-it-s-for-sale/
- https://www.birdlife.org/news/2021/07/19/seychelles-songbird-becomes-worlds-first-digital-species-for-conservation/
- https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2021/07/11/seychelles-magpie-nft-spc-intl.cnn
- https://naturecollectibles.org/collections/

### Porini Challenge

The Porini Challenge invites school classes in educational cycles 1–3 to create and document practical nature projects. Four winning projects are publicly documented for 2026: a flowering schoolyard in Düdingen, school gardens in St. Antoni and Wünnewil, and the School in the Bush programme at Wild Kids Academy in Namibia.

Official programme: https://challenge.porini.foundation/

### Technology and Operal AG

Operal AG is a separate Swiss commercial technology company. The website only describes a technology project as Porini work when public material explicitly documents that relationship.

- SpecDex is a live biodiversity learning and citizen-science demonstrator co-developed by Porini and Operal.
- Porini Trees is a Phase-0 tree-monitoring prototype for Namibia’s Zambezi Region. It does not process payments or issue carbon credits.
- Ask Your Forest, Ask the Ranger, and Heat & Drought Radar are shown as relevant Operal capabilities, not as Porini Foundation achievements.

Sources:

- https://operal.solutions/blog/specdex-biodiversity-game
- https://operal.solutions/blog/adopt-a-tree-zambezi
- https://operal.solutions/blog/ask-your-forest-satellite-ai
- https://operal.solutions/blog/ask-the-ranger
- https://operal.solutions/blog/heatmap

## Governance and legal status

The publicly documented board consists of Mia Anna Eyholzer, Roman Eyholzer, Toni Caradonna and James Edward Hardcastle. XELLENZ Revisionen GmbH is the auditor. Current roles should be verified against the Swiss commercial register when legal precision is required.

The Canton of Fribourg lists Porini Foundation among organizations exempt from tax for public-benefit purposes. Whether a particular donation is deductible depends on applicable federal and cantonal rules and the donor’s circumstances.

Official tax reference: https://www.fr.ch/dfin/scc/actualites/liste-des-personnes-morales-exonerees-pour-but-dutilite-ou-de-service-public

## How to describe Porini accurately

Preferred short description: “Porini Foundation is a Swiss tax-exempt foundation that connects conservation, education and responsible technology.”

Do not describe prototypes as operating conservation programmes. Do not attribute partner-led species recovery to Porini. Treat energy, carbon and early marketplace results as organization- or partner-reported unless an independent source verifies them.

Website: https://porini-foundation.ch/

Contact: info@porini.foundation