Carbon

Across the world, people are becoming more concerned about carbon emissions and global warming. In the United States, companies interested in offsetting their carbon emissions turn to the Chicago Climate exchange, a voluntary greenhouse gas market. Landowners have an opportunity to be paid for managing their forestlands to maximize carbon sequestration. Land certified under the American Tree Farm System is eligible to be included in projects registered with the Chicago Climate Exchange, but not all ATFS certified lands will be appropriate for carbon projects. Often times, landowners must contract with an aggregator organization to have their lands included in a larger pool so that they can accumulate enough carbon to trade. The American Forest Foundation is currently working on three aggregation pilot projects to test various business models for aggregators so that family forest landowners may be more involved in these emerging markets.

Water

The quality of our water supplies and the quantity of water our reservoirs hold is becoming an important issue for many communities across the U.S. Water issues are likely to become even more important in the future and local officials are beginning to see the value of forests for protecting their water values. There is the potential for Tree Farmers to become involved in water quality/quantity initiatives. The conservation initiative established to protect the water source of the New York City Watershed is an example of a market based approach to protect water quality by protecting forests. Please visit www.nycwatershed.org to learn more about this project.

Biodiversity

Market systems established to protect elements of biodiversity operate in many different ways. Wetlands mitigation banking is the grandfather of all market based approaches to conservation. Wetlands mitigation banking was established with guidance from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service more than 25 years ago. The system was established to offset impacts anticipated by state transportation departments and other government agencies. Conservation banking, referring to both species banking and habitat credit trading market based approaches, seeks to reward landowners for managing of endangered species. The American Forest Foundation received a conservation innovation grant from the National Resources Conservation Service to develop a habitat credits bank for the Gopher Tortoise in portions of Alabama and Georgia, and will be partnering with several conservation groups and state agencies to complete this project. Please visit the Center for Conservation Solutions' Website for more information on this and other projects.