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8. Ecosystem Services
Strategy Target: Design and implement ecosystem services pilot projects that link improvements in the environment with improved family forest management.
Highlights . . .
In California -- California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to offset the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions generated by his jet travel (both personal and official) by supporting the Pacific Forest Trust’s Van Eck Forest Project – a forest conservation and stewardship project that will permanently reduce approximately 500,000 tons of CO2 emissions over a 100-year period.
This is the first emissions reductions project registered with and following the rigorous standards of the California Climate Action Registry.
Owned by the Fred M. van Eck Forest Foundation, the 2,200-acre Van Eck Forest in Humboldt County is a working redwood forest conserved and managed by the Pacific Forest Trust to increase carbon stores, restore biodiversity and old growth qualities, and provide habitat for endangered species. Therefore, in addition to helping cool the climate, the Van Eck Forest Project helps protect wildlife habitat, safeguard clean water and sustain rural communities and jobs for the benefit of all Californians.
Forests like Van Eck provide climate benefits by absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it as carbon in trees for hundreds of years. California’s coastal redwood forests – which grow the fastest, largest and for the longest period of time – are especially vital as they are among the most productive forest carbon “sinks” in the world. Because older forests store more CO2 in their trees than do younger forests, managing the Van Eck Forest to store more carbon will result in substantially greater stores of carbon sooner than could be achieved by planting trees or from conventional management practices– a major climate benefit.
Carbon Credit Program -- The enrollment for the first pool of soils offsets has ended, but the 2006-2010 soils offset contract and enrollment is available at this website and will be part of the next pool of offsets. Deadline is summer of 2007 with credits being sold in early 2008.
Farmers Union’s Carbon Credit Program allows ag producers and landowners to earn income by storing carbon in their soil through no-till crop production and longterm grass seeding practices. Farmers Union has earned approval from the Chicago Climate Exchange to aggregate carbon credits. Farmers Union will enroll producer acreages of carbon into blocks of credits that will be traded on the Exchange, much like other agricultural commodities are traded.
Much greater acceptance of global warming reality, meaning for forestry on private woodlands that trees are more widely recognized for sequestering carbon. WI Farmers Union program for CO2.
I hear a LOT about carbon and stream credits trading/sales. There's also a greater amount of mainstream media attention to non-timber forestland benefits.
The education programs of the Virginia Department of Forestry and the Virginia Tech Extension programs have been useful. Further the introduction of LandCare into the New River Basin has been very helpful as has the educational efforts of the Blue Ridge Forest Cooperative and the sterling efforts of a private firm, Foresters, Inc. of Blacksburg, Virginia. They've been great.
Michigan is test piloting a carbon credits program for private natural forests. Indiana stakeholders have met twice with the Michigan coordinators to find out how best to also implement this in Indiana.
The grant to TREASURE FOREST is to develop a prototype dealing with issue.
We have identified Ecosystem Services as one of several strategic focus areas for consideration by Wisconsin of Department Natural Resources leadership. The strategies related to ecosystem services are in early stages of discussion.
Wisconsin -- We have Best Management Practices, water quality, wetland mitigation banking, safe harbor, et cetera programs. These programs are voluntarily and successful. We have already environmentally improved family forest management. We use organic fertilizer in our forest.
We should work toward a national carbon credits system that would pay private landowners to manage for longer rotation, higher value forests that capture and hold more carbon and produce products that sequester carbon and replace products that use/consume fossil fuels. California has done this.
Changes to how the Farm Bill is implemented may help address some of these issues for agriculture land. How can we get them to be better applied to forest land?
There are groups that see the link between markets and what is happening on the land. There is more education available and media exposure. Increased understanding should lead to more demand for products from managed lands and more landowners that see the advantages.
The Nature Conservancy’s work on grasslands might be a nice model to expand to something in forests as an 'ecosystem' services idea.
Carbon markets are in their infancy. They need to grow and the forest landowner must be educated to understand and use them.
I understand that the Texas Forest Service is doing a pilot project, but I do now know any of the details.
Except for conservation easements this is in the very early stages of development.
In Washington, we are moving forward aggressively on carbon modeling and monitoring to have a Kyoto/California compatible credit to offer voluntary buyers. Again, contact Ian Hanna for more detail. Much of it is considered proprietary at present, so we have to be very thoughtful about what goes public.
Master Logger Certification could be the key to long term sustainable forest management. It stands to reason if highly trained loggers are harvesting our forest in an environmentally sensitive way, everyone wins. The problem is that are no incentives for a logger to become certified. We need to find incentives to make master logger certification the standard in the logging industry.
Lots of discussion. The Administration Farm Bill includes a provision to foster creation of private markets for ecosystem services. Not clear it will remain in final bill.
Highlights . . .
In California -- California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to offset the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions generated by his jet travel (both personal and official) by supporting the Pacific Forest Trust’s Van Eck Forest Project – a forest conservation and stewardship project that will permanently reduce approximately 500,000 tons of CO2 emissions over a 100-year period.
This is the first emissions reductions project registered with and following the rigorous standards of the California Climate Action Registry.
Owned by the Fred M. van Eck Forest Foundation, the 2,200-acre Van Eck Forest in Humboldt County is a working redwood forest conserved and managed by the Pacific Forest Trust to increase carbon stores, restore biodiversity and old growth qualities, and provide habitat for endangered species. Therefore, in addition to helping cool the climate, the Van Eck Forest Project helps protect wildlife habitat, safeguard clean water and sustain rural communities and jobs for the benefit of all Californians.
Forests like Van Eck provide climate benefits by absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it as carbon in trees for hundreds of years. California’s coastal redwood forests – which grow the fastest, largest and for the longest period of time – are especially vital as they are among the most productive forest carbon “sinks” in the world. Because older forests store more CO2 in their trees than do younger forests, managing the Van Eck Forest to store more carbon will result in substantially greater stores of carbon sooner than could be achieved by planting trees or from conventional management practices– a major climate benefit.
-- Laurie Wayburn, Pacific Forest Trust
Carbon Credit Program -- The enrollment for the first pool of soils offsets has ended, but the 2006-2010 soils offset contract and enrollment is available at this website and will be part of the next pool of offsets. Deadline is summer of 2007 with credits being sold in early 2008.
Farmers Union’s Carbon Credit Program allows ag producers and landowners to earn income by storing carbon in their soil through no-till crop production and longterm grass seeding practices. Farmers Union has earned approval from the Chicago Climate Exchange to aggregate carbon credits. Farmers Union will enroll producer acreages of carbon into blocks of credits that will be traded on the Exchange, much like other agricultural commodities are traded.
-- Dale Enerson, National Farmers Union
. . . & Reports from Around the Country
Much greater acceptance of global warming reality, meaning for forestry on private woodlands that trees are more widely recognized for sequestering carbon. WI Farmers Union program for CO2.
I hear a LOT about carbon and stream credits trading/sales. There's also a greater amount of mainstream media attention to non-timber forestland benefits.
The education programs of the Virginia Department of Forestry and the Virginia Tech Extension programs have been useful. Further the introduction of LandCare into the New River Basin has been very helpful as has the educational efforts of the Blue Ridge Forest Cooperative and the sterling efforts of a private firm, Foresters, Inc. of Blacksburg, Virginia. They've been great.
Michigan is test piloting a carbon credits program for private natural forests. Indiana stakeholders have met twice with the Michigan coordinators to find out how best to also implement this in Indiana.
The grant to TREASURE FOREST is to develop a prototype dealing with issue.
We have identified Ecosystem Services as one of several strategic focus areas for consideration by Wisconsin of Department Natural Resources leadership. The strategies related to ecosystem services are in early stages of discussion.
Wisconsin -- We have Best Management Practices, water quality, wetland mitigation banking, safe harbor, et cetera programs. These programs are voluntarily and successful. We have already environmentally improved family forest management. We use organic fertilizer in our forest.
We should work toward a national carbon credits system that would pay private landowners to manage for longer rotation, higher value forests that capture and hold more carbon and produce products that sequester carbon and replace products that use/consume fossil fuels. California has done this.
Changes to how the Farm Bill is implemented may help address some of these issues for agriculture land. How can we get them to be better applied to forest land?
There are groups that see the link between markets and what is happening on the land. There is more education available and media exposure. Increased understanding should lead to more demand for products from managed lands and more landowners that see the advantages.
The Nature Conservancy’s work on grasslands might be a nice model to expand to something in forests as an 'ecosystem' services idea.
Carbon markets are in their infancy. They need to grow and the forest landowner must be educated to understand and use them.
I understand that the Texas Forest Service is doing a pilot project, but I do now know any of the details.
Except for conservation easements this is in the very early stages of development.
In Washington, we are moving forward aggressively on carbon modeling and monitoring to have a Kyoto/California compatible credit to offer voluntary buyers. Again, contact Ian Hanna for more detail. Much of it is considered proprietary at present, so we have to be very thoughtful about what goes public.
Master Logger Certification could be the key to long term sustainable forest management. It stands to reason if highly trained loggers are harvesting our forest in an environmentally sensitive way, everyone wins. The problem is that are no incentives for a logger to become certified. We need to find incentives to make master logger certification the standard in the logging industry.
Lots of discussion. The Administration Farm Bill includes a provision to foster creation of private markets for ecosystem services. Not clear it will remain in final bill.
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, Mar 27 2007, 6:25 PM EDT
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| Started By | Thread Subject | Replies | Last Post | ||
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| Anonymous | Importance of Water | 0 | Mar 28 2007, 3:53 PM EDT by Anonymous | ||
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Thread started: Mar 28 2007, 3:53 PM EDT
Watch
Carbon gets all the attention because it has an emerging market. But water is increasingly the limiting factor for society, and forest watersheds are critical to water supply. We need more imagination in selling society on the value of water and finding ways for society to invest in forestry practices that sustain and improve water yields for the long term.
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