Introduction
In the woods, you are surrounded by carbon in its many different forms: from the organic matter in soils, roots, and the litter of the forest floor beneath your feet to the tree biomass in the mid- and overstory above your head. These are some of the main types of biomass that contain carbon as it flows through ecosystems, most of which will be ultimately released back to the atmosphere, but certain actions can help to maximize the amount of carbon that is sequestered and stored by a forest.
Communities often start to think about forest carbon when projects relating to forest management arise or when their community has established a net-zero goal that commits them to reducing and offsetting their climate emissions. There are a number of key considerations for your community to consider when thinking about forest carbon.
Management influences forest carbon and resilience
Human actions affect how much carbon is stored in a forest now, how rapidly the forest sequesters carbon, and the stability of both storage and sequestration over the long term (resilience). Climate smart forestry practices seek to maintain and improve sequestration, storage, and resilience, and include both active and passive approaches.
Learn more about practices that promote both carbon and resilience and find informative graphics on carbon-friendly management practices at the Securing Northeast Forest Carbon Website
Protocols and programs exist for measuring and selling forest carbon
In Massachusetts, forest carbon projects have been developed for both the voluntary and regulatory markets, with landowners selling carbon credits to polluting entities to offset those emissions.
Mass Audubon and DCR have developed a guide to forest carbon projects for municipalities.
Considering Forest Carbon
Whether you are considering trade offs when conducting forest management activities or working towards Net Zero Goals, first you will need to know how much carbon you have and then you can consider what actions you can take to protect that carbon.
- A forest stewardship climate plan can provide you with an approximation of forest carbon for a given site. Communities can choose to select forest carbon as a high priority goal when receiving a plan, in which case, your forester will work with you to better understand how to care for your forest’s carbon.
- There are also a number of calculators/estimators that require varying levels of expertise to engage with. You can read more about those options on The Securing Northeast Forest Carbon Program’s website.
- If your community is interested in participating in a carbon market, you will want to work with a carbon developer so you can have your forest carbon accurately measured. Not sure what a carbon developer is? Get started with our FAQ for carbon markets document.
- If you are focused on Net Zero Planning in your community, here are some key considerations to get you started.
Forest carbon is a complex topic, and it is often best to work with a technical assistance program that can help you understand your options. Find out what organizations may be able to support you.
Promoting/Protecting Forest Carbon
There are many ways to protect and promote forest carbon. When considering where to start consider the following:
- Identify strategies that keep forests as forests or that promote reforestation; forest carbon cannot be protected without a forest to begin with. Your community can get funding and technical assistance to identify and implement strategies that promote forest carbon.
- Develop a Climate-Smart Open Space and Recreation Plan that can help your community plan land use in a way that protects and promotes forests.
- Intervene if your forest’s health is at risk; forest health is important for a forest to continue to sequester and store carbon. A Forest Stewardship Climate Plan can help identify what solutions are right for your community’s land.
- Carbon markets can be used to help keep forests as forests and pay to secure forest carbon long term. Understand if Carbon Markets are Right for Your Community, below.
Are Carbon Markets Right for Your Community?
Landowners who manage their forests for carbon storage can sell a product called “carbon offsets” or carbon credits—one credit is equal to the amount of carbon in one metric ton of carbon dioxide. Unlike other forest products like maple syrup or timber, carbon sold as an offset remains in the forest—but the landowner no longer “owns” it. Since the carbon in the offset is guaranteed to a buyer, future management activities are limited. Companies buy carbon offsets to reduce their contribution to global warming; by paying another party to reduce carbon from a different source, companies “offset” carbon emissions from their own operations. This exchange lets companies count the carbon they are paying to keep out of the atmosphere against their own emissions.
Often, companies or individuals offset their carbon emissions voluntarily to meet internal sustainability goals. These offsets are primarily purchased through a voluntary market. Most companies participating in voluntary markets do not currently face regulatory requirements to reduce emissions but use offsets to reduce their carbon footprint.
In other cases, companies purchase offsets because there is a legal limit on their emissions. In the U.S., California operates the largest compliance market in which companies buy and trade credits to comply with emissions limits.
The three main types of forest carbon offset projects are:
- Improved Forest Management (practices that maintain carbon stocks above a baseline)
- Afforestation and Reforestation (planting trees)
- Avoided Conversion of Forest (avoiding development or other land use change)
For a carbon offset project to have value, it must have the following attributes:
- It must be real, meaning that reductions in emissions (or increases in carbon sequestration) must be tangible.
- It must be additional, meaning that reductions in emissions must occur beyond a baseline and not be the result of a prior legal commitment. In other words, the offset must result in more carbon being stored than if the project never happened. Most of the time, this means comparing the outcome of managing a forest for carbon storage against a baseline scenario, which is normally defined by how nearby forest owners manage their land.
- Carbon offsets must be verifiable, meaning that a third party must periodically check that nothing has negatively affected the carbon being stored, like a forest blown down or a landowner going back on the agreed management practices.
- It must have permanence, which means that reductions in emissions must last in perpetuity (at least as long as the project contract). And,
- The offset must be enforceable, which means that reductions in emissions can only be counted once.
All carbon offsets bought and sold are listed in official databases, or registries to keep track of offset sales and to prevent double counting. In other words, carbon offsets are single-use; when a company emits an equivalent amount of carbon to the offset they have purchased, that offset is considered cashed in and cannot be applied somewhere else, too.
For more information on carbon markets and to determine whether they are right for you, see our municipal guide on carbon markets and visit our case studies to learn about what other communities have done with carbon markets.
Carbon Financing Programs
There are many carbon programs, and the carbon market space is rapidly evolving. Some programs are targeted towards large landowners with several thousand acres whereas some programs focus on landowners with a small amount of acreage. Municipal land is not always eligible for small landowner programs, but some municipalities have partnered together to enter their land jointly into a large landowner program. For example, see our Tri Cities Improved Forest Management case study to learn more about aggregation. Some programs help you sell your carbon, some programs buy the rights to your carbon, while others pay you to engage in practices that promote forest carbon.
Currently, the Securing Northeast Forest Carbon Program maintains the most up-to-date list of carbon financing programs in the Northeast. You may find their comparison tables helpful.
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Forest Stewardship Funding
No matter what goals you might have for your forest, there are a number of programs that can provide financial support and assistance.