2023 Schedule – Pacific Time

Trees provide many essential benefits to human communities, wildlife and the environment. In recent years, their capacity to store carbon has been gaining global attention as one of the mechanisms to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, the prohibitively high costs of project development, monitoring, reporting and verification have previously prevented land trusts from participating in the voluntary carbon market. City Forest Credits (CFC), a national nonprofit carbon registry, is offering a solution by exclusively registering and issuing credits from metropolitan-associated forest projects. CFC’s carbon crediting process offers a systems and accountability approach that ensures high-quality urban forest projects and long-term revenue for land trusts. CFC provides a way for land trusts, local governments and other entities that manage urban forests to finance conservation projects that contribute to the health and well-being of people and the environment. Western Reserve Land Conservancy (WRLC) has completed four projects protecting over 344 acres of forests of Northeast Ohio yielding over 44,475 credits and directly benefit communities in its service area. This synergistic work aligns with WRLC’s mission to protect essential natural assets for thriving and prosperous communities and opens an additional funding stream to support its local conservation and restoration work. In this session, participants will learn about the emerging opportunities for land trusts to generate significant financial resources from forest preservation carbon projects on lands over 15 acres that are in or near metropolitan areas.