Grist: Seeing the Jobs in the Forest

Investment in forest conservation and stewardship can have a tremendous impact on the nation's employment levels, writes Glenn Hurowitz in this week's Grist.

In his article "The Jobs are in the Trees," Hurowitz cites research indicating "reforestation and restoration outperforms even the second-most jobs-intense activity analyzed by 74 percent, and conservation exceeds other major jobs alternatives, including new highway construction, Wall Street, and conventional energy sources like oil and nuclear."

Reports on privately-owned forests found similar results, Hurowitz writes. "The National Alliance of Forest Owners [pdf] reports that every hundred acres of privately owned forests supports eight jobs and the FAO reported last year that investing in sustainable forestry management could create ten million new, good-paying jobs worldwide."

"This means that if the government is serious about creating jobs, it’s got to pass clean energy and climate legislation and a new jobs bill that includes powerful incentives for reforestation, revegetation, sustainable forest management, and conservation.

This legislation can perform the equivalent of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the extremely popular New Deal program that put millions of people to work in forestry and conservation."

Read the full article on Grist and check out their graphic showing jobs in green industries that can be generated by investment in a new clean energy economy.

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Coalition Takes Call for Forest Provisions in Climate & Energy Bill to Capitol Hill

Twenty representatives of a broad, PFT-led coalition – now 70 members strong – called on lawmakers in Washington, D.C., recently, to make a case for conserving and stewarding America’s working landscapes through federal climate and energy legislation.

Productive U.S. forests, farms and ranch lands sustain rural communities and jobs and are fundamental to our atmosphere. Forests alone sequester and store roughly 20 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions annually.

Our coalition members traveled to D.C. to affirm how critical these working landscapes will be to comprehensive climate and energy legislation, such as the bill under development by Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).

PFT President Laurie Wayburn and other coalition representatives (see list below) arrived as the nation’s capital was abuzz over the election of Republican Scott Brown, to the Mass. senate seat long held by Democrats. It was a good time to promote the bipartisan appeal of a clean energy and climate bill in general, and the importance of working lands to both sides of the aisle in particular.

“Rural economies in red and blue states depend heavily on forests, farms and other working lands,” said PFT President Laurie Wayburn, who met with key members, including Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) (pictured above), and senior staff for Senators Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Graham, and Lieberman. "Senators from both sides of the aisle have a vested interested in maintaining the land infrastructure that supports natural resource-based economies. We need to maintain and create new, sustainable jobs in the wake of a declining wood products industry that could have dire consequences for these land- and mill-owners.”

“If they’re forced to sell and these lands are converted away from forest- and farm-use, we lose the jobs and other essential ecosystem services these lands provide, like delivering drinking water and stabilizing the climate,” Wayburn added. “This happens to an area the size of Delaware every year in the U.S. and is expected to swallow up 50 to 75 million more acres of these vital lands in the next 50 years.”

Known informally as our working lands coalition, the group is composed of a broad cross section of forest landowners large and small, mill owners, market groups, conservation and environmental organizations. They arrived on Wednesday, Jan. 20, to discuss the importance of conserving and sustaining U.S. forests, farms and ranch lands through incentives and direct funding allocations created by federal climate and energy legislation. Specifically, the group is asking lawmakers to ensure any comprehensive climate and energy bill includes:

• Accurate accounting of carbon stored in and emitted from U.S. lands;
• High quality emissions reductions from forests in a cap and trade system;
• Funding for land conservation and stewardship.

This unusual alliance of industry and environmental groups garnered the ear of Democrats, Independents and Republicans alike. Members met with lawmakers or Senators’ senior staff from 22 offices.

The coalition’s efforts were covered by ClimateWire, which quoted member Wade Mosby, senior vice president of The Collins Companies, the largest landowner in Pennsylvania, and Gary Hendrix, of the Phillips Brothers Mill and Tree Farm. The latter is a sixth generation landowner operating the last fully-steam operated mill in the country (and our 2008 Forest Champion).

Hendrix (pictured right), Mosby and other landowners told Senators and their staff how landowners are struggling in today’s economy, and need help to avoid going the way of America’s 2.2 million acres that are converted every year.

“Located on just under 1,000 acres of land, the business was lucky to survive last year's collapse of the timber market and extensive sawmill closures, Hendrix said. Owning his own small mill and selling wood to niche markets were big factors in its survival, he said.

A conservation easement set up by the Pacific Forest Trust also helped. The farm receives payments in return for an agreement to never subdivide its land and always maintain a sustainable forest. By contrast, the offset market, with the high participation costs and low carbon prices so far, is still at best a break-even proposal for him, Hendrix said.

Hendrix's neighbors are having even tougher times. On even smaller plots of land, they have struggled to sell timber to the few large commercial mills still operating and often face high tax rates that make staying on their land difficult, he said.”

- ClimateWire, Jan. 20

The importance of conserving forests and their climate benefits is one issue negotiators have been able to find some general agreement on during otherwise contentious international climate talks. The conservation of US lands should be a unifying issue that brings together disparate interests here at home.

Our coalition is a good example of that sort of unification in action.

“Thanks to PFT, the group was an amazing amalgam of varied industry, geographic and political viewpoints which came together perfectly,” reflected Carol P. Williams, executive director of the Land Trust of Arkansas. “The teams [meeting with legislators and staff] were matched beautifully and as well-received by those we visited as possible in such tricky political times!!!”

Let’s hope our lawmakers take a page from our coalition’s book. Provisions for domestic forests, farms and ranch lands can and should generate bipartisan agreement in the new iteration of the climate and energy bill.

Coalition members with representatives in D.C. last week include:

Collins Companies
Conservation Forestry
Equator
Evolution Markets
Forest Guild
Land Trust Alliance
Land Trust for Arkansas
Lyme Timber Company
New Forests
The Pacific Forest Trust
Pennsylvania Land Trust Association
Phillips Brothers Mill and Tree Farm
Piedmont Environmental Council
Pinchot Institute for Conservation
Vermont Land Trust

For a full list of coalition members, download their letter to lawmakers with specifics of what they’d like to see in federal climate and energy legislation.

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COP15: The Upside of Copenhagen

'Some of the Brightest Lights are for Forests'

International forestry consultant and PFT Board Secretary Andrea Tuttle, Ph.D. (pictured left) – who attended international climate talks in Copenhagen last month with PFT Policy Project Manager Emily Russell-Roy – delivers a restrospective on the summit and what's ahead for forests.

The United Nations delegates are home and retrospection is underway. At the end of the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15), the hopes for a binding climate treaty were simply dashed in the melee of too many moving parts. The task of turning the world away from fossil fuels while resolving the equity issues between north and south, rich and poor, developed and developing nations was just too gargantuan.

No one particularly celebrated the “Copenhagen Accord,” the political agreement that emerged in the summit's closing hours from President Obama and the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa. Nevertheless -- as incomplete and non-binding as it is -- the Accord still delivers positive steps forward. It moves the ball towards commitments from more countries, towards U.S. domestic legislation and importantly, towards meaningful inclusion of forests in climate mitigation.

The Accord includes most of the themes of a binding treaty: emission reduction pledges from both developed and developing countries; monitoring and reporting; financing for adaptation and mitigation; and a proposal for managing the funds.

Especially key to U.S. interests: the countries who signed the Accord are the very ones needed to help move climate legislation here at home. The primary objection voiced by the U.S. Senate to the Kyoto protocol in 1997 was that developing economies – particularly China and India – were omitted. They had no obligation to curtail emissions and could continue to grow, putting the U.S. at competitive disadvantage. Now both India and China have signed commitments in full view of the world. They’ve agreed to a temperature goal, consented to reducing emissions intensity, and accepted U.S. insistence on emission measurement and reporting.

President Obama also avoided a political trap – getting too far ahead of Congress. While some hoped for a surprise announcement of a higher greenhouse gas emissions reduction target, Obama stuck to the lowest number proposed by Congress so far, the Kerry-Boxer bill of 17 percent GHG emissions reductions by 2020, rising to 80 percent by 2050. Developing nations and the EU were critical of the seemingly modest goal, especially in light of the 30 percent contingent pledge by the European Union. But a unilateral pledge from the Administration for a higher commitment would have instantly backfired back home, complicating any negotiations with Congress.

Some of the brightest lights are for forests.

Here the Brazilian signature to the Accord becomes crucial to domestic legislation, as five states of the Amazon are an “almost ready” supplier of forest carbon offsets needed to help meet the compliance needs of U.S. industries under a proposed cap-and-trade system. As our large emitters in California often remind us “…we need lots of offsets, we need them early, and we want them to be high quality.” Protecting tropical forests will help bridge the gap until new technology comes on-line to advance a low-carbon economy.

The Accord highlights forests in three separate instances, citing “..the crucial role of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and the need to enhance removals of greenhouse gas emission by forests”.

Translated to simpler phrases, this is almost exactly the language the Pacific Forest Trust uses in our recommendations for domestic forests. Here at home we also need to keep forest lands in forest use for all the climate, environmental and economic benefits they provide.

The Accord references the work of the past to years to develop a REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degredation in Developing Countries) program for the tropics. Since the primary drivers of tropical deforestation come from outside the forest sector (e.g. agricultural and financial policies to increase soybean, cattle, and palm oil production; population growth into forested areas, etc.) and since each tropical country has different capacities to administer and enforce forest protection, there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution.

The Accord calls for the broadest range of activities to combat deforestation and reward sustainable forest management, known as “REDD-plus.” It calls for $30 billion from developed countries as “Prompt Start” money to build capacity and implementation for forest conservation and restoration projects. It also anticipates a future carbon market to generate revenue for assisting the most vulnerable countries adapt to climate impacts. Although formal adoption of the REDD text was lost in the breakdown of the climate deal, we can still use its basic structure for phased capacity building, recognition of cultural rights, and developing sub-national and national baselines to get systems ready for a future carbon market.

So what does all this mean to us? It couldn’t be clearer! Forests are absolutely in the world’s spotlight as crucial to climate mitigation. The international REDD-focus points right back to our forests here at home. The parallels between what the Pacific Forest Trust and others call for in U.S. forest policy directly mirror the Copenhagen Accord plan for the tropics:

• retain the forest land base
• financially incentivize landowners towards active forest stewardship
• apply rigorous and real offset standards in a compliance market, and
• boost the accuracy of full national forest accounting.

The fight for U.S. climate legislation is still in play. The Copenhagen Accord fully reinforces the PFT message as we work to help Congress include strong forest provisions. The world’s eyes are watching how other countries develop their forest policies and -- since the negotiators have been doing this a long time -- they are well attuned to attempts to game the system.

The PFT message for integrity and comprehensiveness in our forest carbon policies fits hand-in -hand with global expectations. Bolstered by the Accord we and our allies can confidently stay on message in urging Congress and the Administration to reflect the real and meaningful contributions that our U.S. forests make, bringing benefits to our climate, our environment and our forest landowners.

To read Tuttle and Russell-Roy's other blog posts from Copenhagen, search this blog for the tag COP15.

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A Migration Plan for Forests?

Forests and other ecosystems will literally need to pick up and move as an adaptation strategy for climate change, according to new research coming out in tomorrow's edition of the journal Nature.

"How well particular species can survive rising worldwide temperatures attributed to excess levels of heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases emitted by human activity hinges on those species' ability to migrate or adapt in place," reports Reuters news service.

Last February National Geographic was already noting U.S. Forest Service reports of the northward migration of U.S. forests in response to climate change -- a woodland phenomena normally associated with the enchanted forests of Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings" saga (see below).

On the bright side: the new research suggests that flora and fauna in mountainous habitats -- including U.S. temperate forested regions -- will experience the slowest rates of climate change because they can track relatively large swings in temperature by moving just a short distance up or down slope.

But migrating up or down to adapt to a changing climate may not be that easy. As the article points out, "much of the world's forest habitats and grasslands already have been severely fragmented by development, making mitigation of climate change in those landscapes harder and leaving their species more vulnerable."

The Nature study provides yet more evidence that the United States needs comprehensive plans for mitigation of forest loss from land conversion and development if we want to reduce the associated greenhouse gas emissions that fuel global warming. Stewarding forests to make them more resilient and adaptive to warmer temperatures is also part of the solution -- and seems somewhat more practical than a massive forest migration plan (or intervention from Tolkein's tree-herding Ents).

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PFT Forest & Climate Presentations Branch Out

Outreach Crosses International Borders, Academic Disciplines and Economic Concerns

At the end of an active year, PFT staff is returning from the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen with a sense of hope and challenge. Forests are assuming a prominent role in climate policy and media, yet much work is needed to ensure forests continue to rise on international and national agendas. Educating landowners, foresters, policymakers, legislative staff and others on how forests can help solve the climate crisis remains a top priority.

PFT’s outreach efforts have spanned the United States and are influencing the international community in places as far as Chile, Argentina and Denmark. Most recently, PFT presented a poster at Copenhagen’s Forest Day event, which outlined the need for strong forest carbon accounting standards for the summit’s more than 1,500 participants.

Other speaking engagements have taken staff as far as Oregon, Wisconsin, Georgia, New Jersey and North Carolina. And news interviews with long reach include a forest and climate TV feature series set up by climate guru Al Gore's staff, which ran in regional markets around the United States over the summer.

Invitations for PFT to speak are indicative of the mounting interest in the climate role of forests and how landowners can be rewarded for conserving and stewarding this vital ecosystem service. The call for more information is coming from a diverse array of audiences, from local and regional government officials to investors to thought leaders like Gore, who referenced PFT President and co-founder Laurie Wayburn as a participant in one of the “Solutions Summits” that informed his new book, “Our Choice.”

Wayburn also has been a frequent speaker on university campuses this year, including Yale, Duke and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she delivered the 2009 Aldo Leopold Lecture, titled “Forests in the United States’ Climate Change Policy,” as part of a highly respected multi-disciplinary series focusing on natural resources.

As Wayburn explains the forest and carbon science from a policy perspective, PFT Managing Director and co-founder Connie Best has been demystifying the evolving forest carbon market for conservationists, forestland owners and managers and investors, leading a seminar for 50 conservation professionals at the Land Trust Alliance Rally and assembling a panel and presentation for 200 attendees at the October Who Will Own the Forest? timber investment conference at the World Forestry Center.

The scope of our outreach has grown even broader as universities and others stream PFT lectures and webinars over the Internet. Wayburn's recent contributions as an expert panelist at conferences sponsored by Yale and Duke Universities were posted to ITunes U. and the universities’ online archives.

Best’s presentations have gone online as well; she recently presented a three-hour webinar guide to the Climate Action Reserve Protocols as part of our work with the Carbon Canopy coalition and did a web presentation for a conference of USDA foresters titled "Douglas Fir Forests in the 21st Century: Changing Climate, Markets and Landscapes."

We've also produced several new reports and articles—many available online—including "The Role of Forests in U.S. Climate Policy" (Land Lines, Oct. 2009) for the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and an analysis of the Climate Action Reserve methodologies for increasing carbon sequestration from improved forest management projects. The latter was prepared for the Western Carbon Sequestration Partnership, a U.S. Department of Energy research consortium ("Demonstration of Conservation-based Forest Management to Sequester Carbon on the Bascom Pacific Forest," Oct. 2009)

In 2010, look for PFT’s contributions to publications about forests, conservation and climate change including forthcoming chapters from “Conservation Capital in the Americas: Exemplary Conservation Finance Initiatives” (Island Press, Jan. 24, 2010), and “Carbon Finance II: Investing in Forests for Climate Protection” (Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies Publication Series, Yale University, Dec. 2009).

As President Obama declared in Copenhagen, we have the knowledge of what needs to happen— now it’s time for action. We’re looking forward to a new year when U.S. legislators will move toward adopting comprehensive policies for conserving our nation’s forests and their essential climate benefits.

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After Copenhagen: Time to 'Redouble Efforts' on U.S. Forest and Climate Policy Front

"If anything, Copenhagen illustrated that we need to redouble efforts here at home to advance climate legislation with strong provisions for conservation of forests and their climate benefits." — PFT President Laurie Wayburn

The Copenhagen climate summit might have ended without a legally binding agreement — and no small amount of resulting disappointment — but progress toward an agreement for forests provided some bright spots in the negotiations.

The New York Times, Time Magazine and Washington Post have reported delegates were close to agreement on a climate plan for forests created through a program called REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries).

Agreement on an international plan for forests would be a major milestone, says PFT Board Secretary Andrea Tuttle, an international forestry consultant who tracked the talks from Copenhagen with PFT Policy Project Manager Emily Russell-Roy. “Reducing carbon emissions from tropical deforestation is one of the most simple and effective ways to make headway on total emissions reductions, so there is strong focus on kick-starting a REDD program,” Tuttle says.

The U.N. plan for forests is stalled without an overarching, binding climate treaty. But growing consensus on international REDD is a hopeful sign and should spur domestic lawmakers to action, said PFT President Laurie Wayburn.

“If anything, Copenhagen illustrated that we need to redouble efforts here at home to advance climate legislation with strong provisions for conservation of forests and their climate benefits,” Wayburn says. “The United States can model how REDD works by walking the talk at home as well as abroad, by reducing forest loss, restoring forests and managing forests adaptively in the face of climate change.”

Once Tuttle and Russell-Roy return home they will be providing more details on the outcome of talks and where negotiations go from here. To read more of their on-the-ground observations from Denmark, visit http://www.forestsworkwonders.org/ and search for posts tagged "Copenhagen."

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COP15: 'Final Friday' Approaching

Unprecedented talks are underway in Copenhagen, where delegates from nearly 200 nations are negotiating a successor to the United Nations climate change treaty forged in Kyoto. International forestry consultant and PFT Board Secretary Andrea Tuttle, Ph.D. (pictured left), and PFT Policy Project Manager Emily Russell-Roy are blogging from the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) who signed the original climate treaty. See Tuttle's latest update below:

'Final Friday' Approaching

As negotiations intensify, forests have emerged as a front-runner issue in the climate talks. Wednesday’s International Herald Tribune headline blared: “Forestry deal could end up high point in Copenhagen.” Reducing carbon emissions from tropical deforestation is one of the most simple ways to make headway on total emissions, so there is strong focus on kick-starting a reduction program.

Yesterday’s announcement by USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to pledge $1 billion to support “Prompt Start” actions in tropical forests is a big step toward securing a climate deal. This money – scheduled for distribution over the next three years – is part of a $3.5 billion package from Australia, France, Japan, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States to build capacity for REDD+ in developing countries.

Most tropical deforestation results from agricultural development (i.e. land cleared for soybeans, palm oil and cattle), so mitigating further destruction requires consideration of each country’s policies surrounding economic growth. We’re complicit because U.S. and European demand for biofuel from palm oil, soybeans for livestock feed, and meat for our hamburgers puts a higher value on farmland than on natural forests. New policies are needed to place crops in already-degraded lands and away from peat soil, and to improve cattle management. In the Brazilian Amazon, for example, the average cattle density is one head per hectare!

The negotiations are still in a state of flux, but rumors suggest a positive outcome for forests. The most recent REDD+ text outlining numerical goals, national versus sub-national approaches, and the role of private money is still being determined. Developing countries have raised questions about finance, transparency and trust between north and south. Last week, island-nation Tuvalu closed down the formal process on its repeated demand to replace the UNFCCC consensus process with a three-quarter vote. This week, Africa temporarily stopped action to draw attention to its need for more assistance. For example, cassava crops in Zambia are rotting faster due to higher temperatures and humidity, and better storage is needed for harvested crops.

With the arrival of Heads of State, security has tightened, forcing all NGOs out of the Bella Center and displacing events to other spaces downtown. Helicopters hover overhead and police sirens wail as security really ramps up. Big protests have closed trains and metros. A snowstorm also blew in yesterday, adding flurry to the bustling scene.

Inside the discussion rooms, PFT attended a late-afternoon panel on the role of forests in climate change. Wiley Barbour, formerly with the EPA and founder of Winrock and the American Carbon Registry, Eric Hauxhausen, head of the climate program for The Nature Conservancy, Rob Fowler, climate specialist for Booz and Company, and I shared good dialogue with a mostly European and business audience. I stressed the need to retain the integrity of the forest carbon credit as we move into a compliance market. “The quickest way to kill a cap-and-trade program is to use phony offsets.”

One challenge that Yvo de Boer, head of the UN climate change conference, cautions against is losing the hard-fought, nitty-gritty text in the final document when Heads of State get involved. But there must be a deal here somewhere. In these final days it’s an intricately timed dance of who makes what concession when. Final Friday is tomorrow. Hopefully the dominoes will start to fall fast – and in the right direction!

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