WVFA Mountain State Forestry Summer 2021

T R E E F A R M N E W S www.wvfa.org Summer 2021 | West Virginia Forestry Association Mountain State Forestry 19 TAPPING FAMILY FORESTS FOR CLIMATE can bring much needed economic stimulus to West Virginia. Across the US, 1 in 4 rural Americans own forestland, most in communities hard hit by economic downturns. Markets, specifically, carbon markets, can help forest owners by providing them a different avenue to generate income from their land. Conversely, the demand for carbon markets is exploding. Some models are predicting as much as $5.6 billion in demand in the near future—private dollars that could be funneled to rural economies like West Virginia. Historically, carbon markets have been inaccessible to small forest owners. While family forest landowners collectively own the largest portion—36%—of the forests across the US, and half of the forested acres in West Virginia specifically, research shows less than 1% of the properties in existing carbon projects are on acreages between 20 and 1,000 acres. This is due to complexity, high upfront costs, and contract length. The Family Forest Carbon Program The Family Forest Carbon Program solves the challenges small forest holders face to carbon markets by taking a different approach to programming and carbon measurement. The program pays family forest landowners to implement carbon- friendly forest management practices that result in additional carbon sequestered and stored on the landscape. This provides landowners with new revenue streams to help care for their land and keep it in trees. In addition, the program helps landowners transition to long- term sustainable management to better manage their forests for overall health, wildlife habitat, and biodiversity. The program then sells the carbon generated to corporate entities who are taking a comprehensive approach to their net zero strategy, helping these companies take the last step needed to address their residual emissions or emissions from their supply chain. The Carbon Opportunity in West Virginia’s Backyard Launching this summer, West Virginia will be the site of a new program, the Family Forest Carbon Program, created by the American Forest Foundation and The Nature Conservancy. The programwill enable landowners of small forest holdings (30 to 2,400 acres) in West Virginia to generate income from their land, improve the health of their forest, and address climate change altogether.