Forest Health-Human Health Initiative Pilot and Replication

Unsustainable forest management and outright loss to development are among the great conservation challenges facing the U.S. Approximately four acres of forest and open space are lost per minute, mostly from family woodland owners. For many their land is their most valuable asset to draw from when sudden financial demands arise. This situation is compounded by the fact that a majority of family woodland owners are older than 65, placing health care at the center of decisions about the family forest. These conditions limit the ability of family forests to deliver sustainable goods and services including the sequestration of atmospheric carbon. Until now forest carbon projects have been mostly implemented by large landowners as a financial mechanism to support conservation and sustainable forest management on their own property. Carbon projects have remained inaccessible to family landowners with contract terms judged too restrictive and credit protocols misaligned with the economics of family ownership. This project will address these issues along with concerns over health related expenses, resulting in the first aggregated (multiple landowners) forest carbon credit transaction in the U.S. to involve family forest landowners in a meaningful way. The project will directly benefit 20 - 25 EQIP eligible landowners on about 3,500 acres in Oregon; setting the stage for broad replication throughout the U.S. through the innovative "conservation for health care" incentive model, family woodland owners will meet their health related expenses not through timber liquidation or land sale, but by monetizing carbon credits generated through sustainable forestry.