What is a living forest worth in money? That’s a simple-sounding question which has flummoxed New Hampshire for a long time.
We know what forests are worth when they are no longer alive, after they’re cut down and sold, but putting a dollar figure on keeping them alive is hard. In 1973 New Hampshire gave it a shot by creating “current use,” the program that recognizes the quality-of-life value of open land by trimming its property tax, while various types of conservation easements have been created to give landowners one-time payment in return for keeping a forest intact.
In the past decade, another system has been developed to pay landowners for leaving woodlands alone: Carbon credits. These put a dollar value on trees’ ability to suck down carbon and turn it into wood, keeping the carbon from baking our grandchildren through the greenhouse effect.
New Hampshire Division of Forests & Lands just released a registry of five carbon credit programs in the state. That includes 7,200 acres in and around the Ossipee Mountains mostly owned by Lakes Region Conservation Trust that in 2018 was enrolled in California’s Carbon Offset Program, overseen by a firm called Finite Carbon.
“It added another layer of protection and allowed us a revenue stream without having to harvest our forests – getting some revenue off them while protecting them for natural resources and conservation,” said Dave Mallard, land and stewardship director for the conservation trust, which is based in Center Harbor.
Establishing the program took three years of effort, Mallard said, starting with a big inventory to estimate how much carbon is stored in all those trees. Each year there is estimated growth above this baseline which generates the annual carbon benefit.
The trust can harvest trees as long as they don’t cut the property back to less than the 2018 baseline. If they cut too much, they have to repay some of the credits.
As you might expect, there’s a lot of work involved to ensure the project actually adds to carbon capture – properties already protected by easements aren’t eligible – and to monitor lands to make sure trees aren’t being cut without anybody knowing. (I do similar monitoring of easements for the Piscataquog Land Conservancy; it’s a great excuse to walk in the woods when I should be doing chores.)
The program isn’t a short-term commitment since the contract calls for the land to be preserved for a full century. Still, Mallard said, it’s worth it. LRCT used its carbon offset revenue to install solar panels and pay for various expenses. “Money was part of the point … but just part of it,” said Mallard.
The new state listing of carbon-capture programs was mandated by the legislature, who were spurred by controversy over the biggest program, which covers 141,000 acres around the Connecticut River headwaters, more than three times the size of the other four projects combined.
If you’ve heard of New Hampshire carbon credit programs at all it’s probably due to that program. The state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources rejected a stewardship plan from its new owners in August, saying the plan would harm the local timber industry without doing enough for the environment.
Among other things, there was concern that cutting back on timber harvesting in this area would just make loggers cut more in nearby forests, negating the benefit.
That debate reflects the difficulty in quantifying the environmental value of carbon offsets, one reason that some people cast doubt on their effectiveness in slowing climate change.
New Hampshire’s new registry doesn’t mean the state is taking sides in the debate.
“We’re not necessarily promoting enrollment in carbon capture programs. We’re just letting people know what’s out there,” said Patrick Hackley, director of the Division of Forests & Land, concerning the new registry.
From the monetary point of view, however, the division has to like the idea.
“It’s an opportunity for alternative income and that’s a good thing – keeping forests as a working forest can provide jobs, products, local wood supply and have environmental benefits,” Hackley said.
The N.H. Carbon Forest Registry can be found at nhdfl.dncr.nh.gov/forest-carbon-climate-change.
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