Climate Smart Land Network
Natural Climate Solutions (NCS) Project

Natural Climate Solutions (NCS) Project

Addressing Barriers to Carbon Sequestration and Storage on Corporate and Institutional Forestland

The NCS Project explored new ways to increase the climate mitigation value of commercial forest land in the United States with funding from The Nature Conservancy and the Doris Duke Foundation. Manomet partnered with members of the Climate Smart Land Network (CSLN), including many major forestry companies in North America, to identify enabling conditions that could improve the adoption of management practices that increase sequestration and/or reduce emissions from forestlands actively managed for wood fiber. The project has explored the merits of two avenues for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from working forests: (1) changing harvest and transportation practices which could potentially be driven by greater efficiencies and hence cost savings, and (2) modest changes to offset projects and carbon market requirements which could significantly increase participation by corporate and institutional forest landowners.

This work applied three strategies to explore these avenues. Manomet hosted discussion groups and roundtables to identify structural barriers to participation in forest carbon offsets. These roundtables included corporate and institutional forest landowners, offset buyers, developers, verifiers, and offset standard-setting organizations. Manomet also reviewed scientific research and conducted interviews with companies and logging professionals to identify opportunities for GHG emissions reductions from non-silvicultural activities. Finally, Manomet worked with corporate and institutional forest landowners in three regions to pilot forest carbon offset projects.

Reports:

Project Summary

Barriers to Participation by Corporate and institutional forest landowners in Forest Caron Offsets.

No/reduced cost opportunities to increase carbon sequestration and storage.

Outcomes of Forest Carbon Offsets on Large Forest Ownerships: Preliminary Findings