Funding to help land trusts and forest owners access carbon markets for conservation of small forests at high risk of conversion around cities
Seattle, WA, November 8, 2024, 2024 – The U.S. Forest Service awarded a second grant to the non-profit City Forest Credits to continue its work connecting small-acreage and underserved landowners to the carbon markets. City Forest Credits and its grant partners will work to educate these forest landowners and help them overcome demand challenges in the carbon market. The project will seek to generate demand for carbon credits for forest conservation through three pilot ‘Regional Buyer Hubs’ operated by the land trust grant partners.
The grant team includes Western Reserve Land Conservancy, Georgia-Alabama Land Trust, and The Land Conservancy of McHenry County (TLC), who will engage new local and regional carbon buyers via Regional Buyer Hubs.
Traditionally, landowners lack the capacity, expertise, and volume individually to develop buyer demand. They currently rely on carbon brokers or programs that charge substantial fees and protect their buyer contacts as proprietary. These three grant partners have already enrolled eight carbon projects with the City Forest Credits (CFC) registry, sold credits from their own carbon projects, and will help build new demand for local projects, to be replicated nationally.
The trees and forests in and around cities are extraordinarily valuable, bringing environmental and social benefits to millions of people. Almost every city in the U.S. is losing tree canopy, and the remnant forest parcels around cities are converting to developed uses at high rates. Land trusts and private forest landowners are key in the fight to preserving high-quality forests, mitigating climate change, improving air quality, enhancing biodiversity, and providing many social and economic benefits to communities.
CFC has enrolled 60 preservation and afforestation projects generating an estimated $213 million in ecosystem co-benefits over 50 years. Preservation projects alone have sold over 50,000 credits to buyers at prices from $25/ton to $55/ton on the voluntary market. Each City Forest Carbon+ CreditTM includes quantified co-benefits such as stormwater reduction, air quality impacts, and energy savings, as well as reported social impacts including equity for under-resourced communities and physical, mental, and social health benefits.
CFC’s program and preservation credits are endorsed by the International Carbon Reduction and Offset Accreditation (ICROA) in Geneva. ICROA is the premier global endorsing standard, and City Forest Credits joins only five other independent carbon standards endorsed by ICROA in North America.
BeZero Carbon, a UK-based carbon project rating firm, recently gave a CFC-credited preservation project in the Pittsburgh area an “A” rating. This is the highest rated avoided deforestation project in the world among BeZero’s fifty rated avoided deforestation projects.
“These conservation projects create a unique public resource carbon credit – trees on public land or with public access where people live, breathe, work, learn, and recreate. The projects are implemented by non-profits and local governments, so the carbon revenue goes right back into the trees,” said Mark McPherson, Founder and Executive Director, at City Forest Credits. “This gives companies the opportunity to buy offsets for conserving forest land, rather than from projects that continue to harvest trees.”
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CONTACT: Morgan Anya, info@cityforestcredits.org
About City Forest Credits
City Forest Credits is a non-profit carbon registry based in the U.S. The program administers carbon protocols and issues offset credits to tree preservation and planting projects in and around cities and towns.
About the USFS Forest Landowner Support Funded Projects
Forest Landowner Support provides competitive grant opportunities to entities and organizations for delivering technical and financial assistance to private forest landowners—including Tribes, underserved landowners, and smaller-acreage landowners.
About Western Reserve Land Conservancy
Western Reserve Land Conservancy (WRLC) is an accredited land trust that works in northeastern Ohio with many underserved and small-acreage forest owners in all aspects of land conservation. The Executive Director of WRLC is a member of the Land Trust Alliance National Leadership Council. WRLC has enrolled 7 CFC projects in the northeast Ohio Rural Gradient geography, and has sold credits as part of a national sale and privately to local buyers. WRLC and CFC received a Priority Grant from the Forest Legacy section of the USFS in the summer of 2023 to begin outreach to land trusts.
https://wrlandconservancy.org/
About Georgia-Alabama Land Trust
The Georgia-Alabama Land Trust (GALT), accredited by the Land Trust Alliance Accreditation Commission, is the largest regional land trust in the Southeast. Over nearly three decades, GALT has protected more than 1,250 properties. One of these protection mechanisms is the enrollment and crediting of preservation carbon projects under the CFC standard. GALT itself has enrolled a property in the CFC registry, completed all documentation, received credits, and sold credits.
About The Land Conservancy of McHenry County
The Land Conservancy of McHenry County (TLC) works in the Rural Gradient outside the City of Chicago. TLC is accredited by the Land Trust Alliance Accreditation Commission and has worked for 30 years to protect forests, farms, oak ecosystems, and to foster connection of the community to natural areas. TLC is an active partner in the Chicago Region Trees Initiative, a regional leader on oak conservation, and has expertise working with small and underserved landowners on conservation easements and other conservation matters. TLC has received carbon credits from CFC on two oak woods projects in the Rural Gradient and seeks to expand the program to individual property owners to help preserve privately-held woodlands.