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PA Forestry Assn.: Family Forest Carbon Pilot Program Launched In PA

The PA Forestry Association would like to announce the American Forest Foundation in partnership with The Nature Conservancy has launched a pilot carbon sequestration incentive program in selected areas of Pennsylvania called the Family Forest Carbon Program.

The program this year is limited to areas in Northwest and Central Pennsylvania, but the partnership has plans to extend the area to include all of Pennsylvania private forestlands by next year.

The Family Forest Carbon Program is designed to be easily accessible to small landowners, removing the barriers landowners often face—access, lack of expertise and cost—to help them manage and optimize their family forests for carbon sequestration.

Landowners will get payments to maintain their forestland with the agreed upon practices. This is accomplished by:

-- Adopting a practice-based approach that offers incentives for specific forest management practices which have been scientifically demonstrated to enhance carbon sequestration. In PA there are two practices that will be funded initially.

-- Extended harvest cycles- no select cuts, encourage sustainable harvest that will maintain basal area and viable seed source for future forests

-- Competing vegetation control- controlling competing vines, shrubs, grasses and forbs to grow a sustaining forest, in conjunction with a planned regeneration harvest

-- Engaging family forest owners with trusted information and decades of experience working with private landowners.

-- Reducing the expenses to landowners by 75% while creating a path to income.

-- Offering carbon benefits to businesses and partners to help them reach their sustainable development goals and demonstrate their leadership on climate issues.

The Family Forest Carbon Program makes it economically feasible to engage family lands at a large scale, thus making a significant contribution to the nation’s climate mitigation strategy.

According to the initial estimates from the program’s science team, if 20 percent of these family forest acres (54 million) were managed using practices that optimized carbon sequestration by 2030, this program could sequester over two gigatons of CO2 [carbon dioxide] through the balance of the century.

Program participants are expected to work with professional foresters to implement one or more practices that align with the landowner’s management goals. The recommended forest management practices have been scientifically demonstrated to enhance carbon sequestration.

Those interested in participating in the Family Forest Carbon Program should sign up at the Family Forest Carbon Program website.

For more information, visit the American Forest Foundation's Family Forest Carbon Program website.

Due to Coronavirus precautions, you may not be contacted immediately after signing up. But please use this time to express interest and when/if life goes back to normal, the program will be prepared to kick into gear. Stay safe and use this time to work in your woods for a healthy mind and body.

For more information on programs, initiatives, upcoming and more, visit the PA Forestry Association website. Click Here to sign up for regular updates.

(Reprinted from the PA Forestry Association April newsletter. Click Here to sign up for your own copy.

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