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.”
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.
Pacific Forest Trust President and co-CEO Laurie Wayburn explains how PFT has joined conservation and market forces to sustain forests in a new publication: “Conservation Capital in the Americas: Exemplary Conservation Finance Initiatives” (2010/256 pages/$30.00). 
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