New Five-Year Carbon Market Pilot Program Gives Conservation Funding for Land Trusts

A new five-year pilot, carbon market program, is organized to provide conservation funding for land trusts to alleviate climate change. This is a project of the Land Trust Alliance. The climate Trust and Finite Carbon serve as project partners.

Project Objectives

This program is intended to allow small land trusts with forest lands to join the carbon market voluntarily. They will be given cash by The Climate Trust organization to help the land trusts buy no-till grassland conservation agreements from ranchers and farmers.

This will provide eligibility for the lands to join the carbon market. The Finite Carbon group will assist them.

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The purpose of this is to add more lands for preservation, which will provide conservation benefits and alleviate the negative consequences of climate change. Those grasslands and forests preserved from "development" and kept intact will trap and keep Carbon out of our atmosphere, which will help stop the greenhouse effect and global warming. 

Making Small Land Trusts Qualified for the Carbon Project 

This program allows small landholdings of land trusts to participate. The Land Trust Alliance aims to let 1,000 of its members be qualified. 

According to Land Trust Alliance conservation initiatives vice president Erin Heskett, they will pilot test their processes and methodology in the five-year project. They will be able to assess the feasibility of the program.

He says that they are expecting the program to be a permanent solution for land trusts to have an integral role in the carbon market, while at the same time letting them have access to conservation funding.

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Carbon Markets

According to Heskett, carbon markets are classified as voluntary or compliance. The government regulates compliance markets, in which businesses buy carbon credits to meet emission reduction requirements.

Meanwhile, in voluntary carbon markets, consumers and businesses buy carbon credits through their initiative. These may include flight emission offsetting, goals for CSR or corporate social responsibility, and similar intentions.

There are independent carbon registry organizations that manage voluntary carbon programs, who issue carbon credits.

Payments for Land Trusts

The Climate Trust provides payments depending on land size, how much Carbon is in the soil, and the current value of carbon credits.

According to Heskett, the payments help non-profit land trusts buy from the landowner's conservation easements that will benefit them when they conserve their grasslands, taking advantage of the voluntary market's revenues. 

For Climate Trust payments, these become matching funds for more prominent easement fund sources, usually providing 25% to 50% matching funds required by the program.

Expected Benefits

The program is expected to make a dent on the climate problem when a lot of Carbon is sequestered by the lands conserved.

One grassland acre made into cropland can emit carbon dioxide at the level of 20 to 40 tons. Meanwhile, a ranch as big as 5,000 acres will emit over 150,000 tons in 50 years. The latter is equal to 32,000 vehicles in one year.

Finite Carbon's projects for forests are usually 7,000 to 10,000 acres, yielding roughly 250,000 carbon in the first five years. One credit equals one ton sequestered carbon dioxide, according to Heskett. The sequestered carbon dioxide per year for a typical forestry project equals 10,000-12,000 vehicles in a year.

According to Heskett, the carbon market and its pilot carbon market program are meaningful solutions against climate change, mitigating it and giving conservation funding to land trusts to conserve more land.

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