Carbon market opening up for smaller forest landowmners

Forester Sarah Hall-Bagdonas talks with Sara Velazquez and Dan
Nelson. (Reuters photo by Carey Biron via The Daily Yonder)

Major rural landowners and philanthropies such as The Nature Conservancy are active players in the carbon market, which pays them for not cutting trees, which use carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas. That's been more difficult for small landowners, but now the American Forest Foundation has a landowners with as little as 30 acres, and such programs are likely to be boosted by the climate bill recently signed by President Biden, reports Carey Biron for the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Two landowners in the Family Forest Carbon Program are Sara Velasquez and Dan Nelson, who bought 55 acres of forest in northeast Pennsylvania to build their home. "Just after they purchased the land in 2019, however, the pandemic forced them both out of work, raising concerns about how to pay the annual taxes on the land," Biron reports. Neighbors who see logging as "free money up in the woods" asked them about that, but "Now they think they have found a different solution."

The credits that Velasquez and Nelson get under a 20-year contract for preventing "climate-changing emissions will in turn be sold to help corporations such as outdoor outfitter REI move toward their 'net zero' emissions goals," Biron writes. "Velazquez and Nelson, in turn, receive cash that helps them cover their tax payments, plan for revitalizing the forest and, for now, stay away from logging."

Private companies are also in the game. "NCX, which uses satellite imagery and artificial intelligence to gauge carbon-storage potential on small land holdings. It then sells carbon credits," Biron reports. "Since last year, the company has enrolled nearly 2,500 U.S. landowners who hold over 4 million acres, with a median size of around 200 to 400 acres per landowner, it said."

The climate bill has "$450 million to push private landowners toward forest-management practices with climate benefits, according to the nonprofit American Forests. The bill includes a particular focus on underserved communities and family forest owners," Biron notes.