Ecotrust Forest Management, Equator and New Forests have revealed a carbon transaction under the Climate Action Reserve’s (CAR) new Forest Project Protocol. As per the terms of the deal, forest carbon generated from Ecotrust Forest Management’s 3,276-acre Sooes property in the Olympic Peninsula will be purchased by the Eco Products Fund (EPF), a private equity vehicle co-managed by Equator and New Forests.
The project is expected to generate hundreds of thousands of carbon credits (CRTs) over a 100-year lifespan. The transaction is an improved forest management (IFM) project to utilize the CAR protocol’s national scope. It is the first IFM project to be listed with CAR outside of California and the first in the Pacific Northwest.
Emerging high-quality and comprehensive protocols such as those from CAR and the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) promise to fuel the rapid growth of carbon transactions throughout the US. National carbon protocols are also shaping possible cap-and-trade markets currently under consideration by Congress, the companies said.
Bettina von Hagen, CEO of Ecotrust Forest Management, said: “Ecotrust Forests and the Eco Products Fund share a strong commitment to developing high-quality forest carbon and other ecosystem service markets to better align the financial needs of private land managers with society’s interest in reducing emissions, increasing forest cover, and reducing conversion of forests for other uses.”
Gerrity Lansing, CEO of Equator, said: “We are extremely pleased to work with Ecotrust Forest Management on this deal. Ecotrust Forest Management is on the leading edge when it comes to showing that ecological forest management can provide commercial returns by monetizing ecosystem services such as carbon.”
The forest carbon sold in this transaction is generated through extending rotations, expanding riparian buffers, establishing reserves to protect features, and reducing harvest on steep slopes above and beyond the standards required by regulations.
These strategies are designed not only to generate forest carbon, but also to enhance riparian and terrestrial habitat for threatened and endangered species such as Pacific salmon, the northern spotted owl and marbled murrelets, the companies added.
The companies claimed that Pacific Northwest forests such as Sooes, which are dominated by long-lived species such as Douglas fir, Sitka spruce, western hemlock and western red cedar, have the ability to sequester more carbon than almost any other terrestrial ecosystem.