"Working Woodlands is a new model of conservation that leverages the market demand for certified forest products and carbon offsets to help private landowners achieve their goals while promoting long-term conservation at the same time," says Josh Parrish, the Pennsylvania director of land protection for The Nature Conservancy (TNC).
The City of Bethlehem, as the first partner in TNC’s Working Woodlands Program, has agreed to protect 22,000 acres in the largest private conservation deal in Pennsylvania history.
The forest, which protects habitat and drinking water to the city and surrounding communities, now also offers forest landowners access to forest certification and carbon markets, in exchange for a commitment to practice sustainable forestry.
In December 2009, TNC began speaking with landowners about Working Woodlands, a model forest conservation program that aims to protect forests and address climate change via an agreement with carbon marketer and developer Blue Source, LLC to create incentives that reward landowners for exceptional forest management practices.
The program uses an innovative combination of working forest conservation easements, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) forest management certification, and forest carbon payments to make conservation more attractive and relevant for private landowners. Blue Source markets the carbon offsets.
Under the program, landowners’ up-front costs for forest certification are eliminated, while they receive direct assistance in marketing its certified products and carbon offsets. Companies around the world purchase these credits to offset greenhouse gas emissions.
TNC will obtain FSC certification and Blue Source will provide financing for carbon credit development.
"This alliance provides a means for landowners in the U.S. to embrace forest conservation at no up-front cost and enables them to receive timber and carbon revenues as a result of their commitment to improved environmental stewardship," Blue Source President, Roger Williams said. "We see this as an evolution in land conservation and have structured this program to make it easy for landowners to participate."
"There are many forest carbon offsets in existence, but the Working Woodlands model is very credible because it is tied to FSC certification," said Luke Dillinger, wood procurement forester at Domtar’s Johnsonburg paper mill, an FSC-certified facility and a major market participant for Pennsylvania forest products. "The program offers a unique, market-based mechanism to allow forest landowners to manage for the long-term health of the forest while maximizing the sustainable revenue stream off of their properties, he said."
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