- The development of the carbon beneficial practices,
where The Nature Conservancy worked
with The Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science.
And then, I will move towards describing
the forest carbon modeling results
for a select few practices.
And then lastly, provide a summary of the practices
that have been selected for the Northeast Pilot
that will be launched this coming spring.
So the Family Forest Carbon Program,
just some background and context.
The American Forest Foundation, and The Nature Conservancy
have partnered to design a program
which addresses the obstacles of family forest landowners
face in participating in the carbon markets.
Historically, carbon markets have only been available
to large landowners, typically over 2000 acres in size.
So this program really addresses that issue.
The Family Forest Carbon Program
is underway and being implemented
currently within the Central Appalachians.
It was first launched in Pennsylvania in 2020,
and since has expanded to West Virginia and Maryland.
And so currently, we're looking to launch pilots
in this coming year in the Northeast,
and then also in the Northwoods.
The Learning Pilot in the Northeast
will cover all of Vermont,
most of Massachusetts, and a portion of Eastern New York.
And as I indicated, this program will really
be addressing the issue of making
smaller landowners eligible.
So landowners that have eligible forest stands
that are non-industrial,
private landowners between 30 and 2,400 acres
will be eligible for the program.
There can't be any restrictions on the land
that excludes timber harvest,
and there needs to be operable forest harvest conditions
with sufficient commercial stocking.
And then there's some additional eligibility criteria
tied to specific practices.
So what makes the Family Forest Carbon Program
unique or different
than a traditional forest carbon project
is that the Family Forest Carbon Program
pays landowners to implement specific practices.
So they're being paid to implement
a carbon beneficial practice
as opposed to a traditional forest carbon project
pays a landowner for the carbon that's sequestered
and credits that are sold.
The FFCP monitors practice implementation on every property,
but only monitors carbon values at the landscape level
using a random sampling design.
And that methodology,
it can be found on Verra's website
as the Improved Forest Management Methodology.
Within the Family Forest Carbon Program,
additionality is determined after the practices
are implemented, and it uses
a paired inventory plot design on select properties
compared to a composite control baseline,
which I'll be describing in more detail in the talk.
So essentially, the baseline is being then
compared to the monitoring plots on the property
determined carbon stock change.
And so this is very different than a traditional project
where additionality is determined from a model baseline
at the initial conception of the project.
The monitoring costs are high
but they're spread across many,
many properties that are involved in the program.
So just to further illustrate
how carbon benefits are evaluated,
this figure here depicts a property
that would be enrolled in the program,
and the carbon stock change would be evaluated
on forest inventory plots on that property.
That property would be then compared to
US Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis plots
in the surrounding landscape
that make up the composite baseline.
The difference between the stock change
on the property compared to the baseline
would determine the carbon benefits
over the enrollment period.
So our project goals then we're really to estimate
and predict and model the carbon benefits and stock change
on a handful of draft practices on private forests
located within the pilot area.
And so, the purpose was then
so that we could select practices
that could be offered within the pilot program
that were viable and financially feasible,
refine the practice specifications,
and then to determine payment rates to the landowner.
So next,
I'd like to go to shift,
to how the practices were developed.
As I indicated,
The Nature Conservancy worked
with the Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science
to draft these 10 practices.
NIACS and TNC gave an extensive literature review
and then held a series of workshops
to develop these practices.
These 10 practices can be found
within the Healthy Forest for our Future guide.
This is A Management Guide to Increase Carbon Storage
and Adaptation in Northeast Forests.
And if you're interested this
I can put a link in the comment section.
And so, out of those 10 practices,
we work with the Spatial Informatics Group
to model the carbon benefit
or stock change on four practices.
A deferred harvest practice,
we're calling Growing Older Forests.
In two harvest practices,
one called, creating gaps to promote regeneration.
A second, retaining more carbon and thinning,
and then last practice, promoting regeneration
by treating competing invasive vegetation.
So we worked with the Spatial Informatics Group
to model the stock change
on a forest inventory and analysis plots
to determine that stock change on a composite baseline,
and also on the modeled harvest practices.
Forest Service Inventory of plots
were selected throughout the region
based on private ownership
falling within the Lower New England,
Green Mountain ecoregions.
We looked at two forest type groups:
Maple/beech/birch and Oak/hickory,
and plots had to meet a minimum volume criteria
of having greater than 2000 board feet
of commercial species on those plots.
That resulted in 543 forest inventory analysis plots
that we included in the analysis
that span of the two eco-regions
and two forest types.
So, I just like to give you a general stance
of the methods that we used
that SIG put together to evaluate annual stock change,
within the baseline.
And so, to evaluate annual carbon stock change,
we used FIA plots across four remeasurement cycles.
Stock change were evaluated at the end
of that remeasurement cycle
and was subtracted by the beginning of the cycle.
So determining annual years,
we looked at the difference between T2 and T1,
divided by the number of years in the remeasurement cycle.
So on average,
this baseline represents carbon stock change
over a 10 to 12 year period
within the FIA agreement of remeasurement cycle.
So for the prescriptions,
we looked at stock change over a 20 year period of time.
So these were modeled utilizing
the forest vegetation simulator
over a 20 year period of time,
starting in 2000 and ending in 2020.
So this is the results for the deferred harvest practice
called Growing Older Forests.
I'd like to first point your attention
to the results of the composite baseline,
which is just stock change on those FIA plots
over a 10 year period of time.
So within the Maple/Beech/Birch forest type,
on average,
there was around a one metric ton of CO2e per acre per year
within the Maple/Beech/Birch forest type
in both ecoregions.
The baseline was significantly higher
within the Oak/Hickory forest type
in the Lower New England region,
which indicates that there's much less removal,
so harvest within this forest type and region,
which you'll see indicates the feasibility
and determines potential feasibility
of some of the practices.
So when compared to the deferred harvest
over a 20 year period of time,
carbon benefits range on the Maple/Beech/Birch forest type
approximately two metric tons of CO2e per acre per year,
it was about half of that
within the Oak/Hickory forest type.
So about one ton.
We also looked at the creating gaps
for regeneration practice.
The carbon benefits come from reducing
the total harvestable area
while retaining carbon in large diameter trees.
We modeled out two treatment areas,
removing 10% of a stand,
as well as removing 20% of the stand.
The harvest was conducted in the midpoint
in the project period
while retaining those four large-diameter trees.
The removing 10% of the area resulted in approximately
removal of 8% of the baseline area
while moving a 20% of the area
resulted in 16% of the basal area
while retaining those large diameter trees in the gaps.
So when we looked at the results of this practice
for the Maple/Beech/Birch forest type in the two ecoregion
compared to the baseline,
we found in general,
if you remove 20% of the stand
within a harvest during that period,
there would be approximately
about one metric ton per acre per year.
However, removing 20% in the Oak/Hickory forest type
actually had no carbon benefit.
So, this indicated that this practice
was not going to be feasible
in this ecoregion and this forest type.
We also modeled out a thinning practice.
The thinning practice produces carbon benefits
by removing intermediate to co-dominant trees
while re-increasing the average diameter
of the residual stand.
And SIG modeled out
three different thinning scenarios.
Thinning to the A-line,
thinning to the midpoint between the A and B-lines,
and then thinning to the B-line.
These thinning scenarios range in removal of basal area
from removal of 10% to 27%.
And so, these are the results of the thinning practice
compared to the composite baseline.
You can see within the Maple/Beech/Birch forest type
in both ecoregions,
there was a moderate carbon benefit
in modeling to the A and midpoint B-line.
So it range from 1/3 to .7
metric tons of CO2e per acre per year.
There weren't some differences between the two eco regions,
and thinning to the B-line
resulted in minimal or no carbon benefit
compared to that composite baseline.
So when we look at the Oak/Hickory forest type,
only thinning to the A-line
which is a very light thinning,
produced any carbon benefits.
So, even thinning to the AB-line or to the B-line
had no carbon benefit over that 20 year period of time.
So again, making this practice difficult
to be offered within that 20 year timeframe
within this forest type and ecoregion.
- (indistinct) about four minutes left
of the session just so you know.
So, maybe wrap up and so we can get to the questions.
- Sure. Great.
Thank you.
So we also looked at treating the competing invasive
vegetation to promote regeneration.
And I think this is an area that...
but the results were inconclusive
and so in the area of future results.
So we ended up basically offering two practices.
Are gonna be offered by the American Forest Foundation
in the spring.
And this practice, Growing Older Forests,
which is deferred harvest over a 20 year contract,
as well as a practice we're calling Enhance Your Woodland,
which would allow landowners
to remove up to a total of 15% of the basal area
within that 20 year period of time.
So within that, a landowner could implement a gap harvest
or a thinning or combination of both.
But it's just to note that this practice
will only be offered
within the Maple/Beech/Birch forest type.
So kind of in conclusion
of the pilot we'll launch this spring.
Two practices will be offered.
We'll be making payment information available soon.
We're still interested in researching
the viability and feasibility of other practices.
And we're gonna be expanding the carbon benefit
modeling to the remaining portions of New York
So with that, I thank you and, answer any questions.
- We do have a question,
a couple of questions in the chat.
The first one being,
can you comment on whether forest soils
are being considered as well as above ground biomass,
or if there are future considerations
regarding forest soils?
- Yeah, we're not including,
so this is just above-ground.
So this is the above-ground live and deadpools.
We have not included forest soils.
From what we understand forest soils are relatively stable,
but certainly that's the area for future research.
- And then I think Jim has his hand raised.
Jim, if you wanna unmute and ask.
- [Jim] Sure.
I noticed a couple of things.
The eligibility 30 acres.
I happen to own 45 acres,
but it's non-contiguous.
Is this limited to just a contiguous 30 acres?
That's the one thing.
But more importantly,
for people that are private land owners
who are not necessarily doing timber removal
or other for-profit activities,
is there any effort underway
to disseminate these best practices
to the population in general,
even if they may not be interested
in actually a financial carbon benefit incentive?
- Great question, James.
I don't know the details on the part parcel aggregation,
but I think that that would be eligible.
And then, thank you for promoting
the Healthy Forest for the Future guide
that has the carbon beneficial practices.
You can see Laura's posted the link to that guide.
So there's 10 practices there that we feel pretty strongly
have carbon benefits,
as well as improve adaptation and resilience.
So, I think that's a great place.
And there are potentially these other funding sources
to implement those practices.
- Great. One final question from the chat
is your thinning prescription was supposed
to increase the QMD,
but your results show it...
I'm assuming that says decrease.
How come?
- Yeah. So the...
What we were aiming to is to have less than a 10% increase
within that practice.
So over time, outside of that 20 year window,
we believe that the average stand diameter
would actually increase,
but after that initial harvest,
we did see moderate decreases in the queue.
But that's a great question. Thank you.
- Great. Well, that's about time.
So thanks so much, Chris.
And we'll be moving on
to our next contributed talks in five minutes.
So, see you soon.
- Thank you very much.