|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
Percolating out from the Mississippi River, the Lower Mississippi Valley comprises thousands of acres of floodplain forests that were once home to the famed Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Florida Panther and Red Wolf.
Once the largest contiguous tract of floodplain forest in North America, only 26 percent of the Lower Mississippi Valley’s historic extent remains, much of it as isolated fragments.
A small tract of land in the heart of the Lower Mississippi Valley, made famous from Ivory-billed studies in the 1930s, is a key to connecting existing forest fragments, and is now protected by a Nature Conservancy easement.
Helping Wildlife and the Climate
This tract located in Louisiana’s Tensas (pronounced Tensaw) River Basin, is the first offering in The Nature Conservancy's voluntary carbon offset program. The tract currently stands as unproductive farmland. Revenue from carbon offset contributions will provide the funding to pay the costs not only of setting aside land for the project, but also of planting trees and managing the project.
The Tensas River Basin Project is part of a system of 3,600 acres that are or will soon be under conservation management, creating a large contiguous block of forest within the Lower Mississippi Valley that will restore critical habitat.
“The Tensas River Basin Project fills a gap and consolidates this larger conservation area. It represents a critical piece in the conservation puzzle,” said David Shoch, forester and carbon market specialist for The Nature Conservancy.
According to Conservancy climate change experts, a project to capture carbon on 47 acres of the Tensas River Basin Project is predicted to store 14,300 short tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the first 70 years.
However, to take into account the remote possibility of extreme carbon losses due to severe storms, and other losses beyond our control, we are maintaining a buffer and insurance reserve.
It is important to remember that this is the first offering in the carbon offset program. As demand increases for the program we will be expanding within the Lower Mississippi Valley and to new geographies.
Connecting Louisiana Wilderness
The Lower Mississippi Valley project is a historic opportunity to reforest private land in Tensas River Basin, Louisiana, where an estimated 74 percent of bottomland hardwood forests have been cleared and converted for agriculture.
By reforesting these private lands, the Conservancy will protect land and restore critical habitat that will store forest carbon. This region is a priority for conservation because:
-
Deforestation has left islands of remnant forests surrounded by a sea of agriculture – reforestation will serve to connect small existing forest tracts to create critical wildlife corridors;
-
It supports the largest-known population of the Louisiana Black Bear;
-
It contains several priority bird conservation areas; and
-
It hosts rare and endangered fish, mussels and aquatic ecosystems that are affected by adjacent agricultural lands.
The Tensas River Basin Project will be a part of a system of nearly 3,600 acres that is or soon will be under conservation management – land that is connected to the 85,000 acre Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge and Big Lake Wildlife Management Area via a corridor of riparian forest along the Tensas River.
The hope is that this corridor will allow for movement of native species such as black bear, and that future widening of the corridor will improve biodiversity.
An Innovative Carbon Offset Program of the Highest Integrity
The Conservancy has a long history of using conservation easements on private lands, and by extending this approach to a carbon offset model, the Conservancy will invest in protecting land and restoring forests, which will produce real carbon benefits.
This demonstrates the integrity of the Conservancy’s carbon offset model by placing additional lands into protection.
While some other carbon offset programs focus on existing state- and federally-protected lands, the Conservancy’s approach of protecting new land helps address concerns that some carbon offset programs simply provide more funding for conservation and carbon storage that would have happened anyway.
“The offsets produced by this project, and future projects entered into the offset program, will be additional, meaning that they would not have existed if it weren't for the money generated by contributions to the offset program,” said Shoch.
“And without these contributions, the land would have remained in agricultural use, or otherwise degraded.” This further affords buyers of carbon offsets the confidence that those offsets are directly attributable to their financial contribution."
Also, the existence of an easement on the land ensures the permanence of the forest project and the Conservancy has set aside resources to monitor the easement and holds the right to enforce the easement if necessary.
The projects in this program are designed to meet, and in some cases exceed, standards set by Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS), a new but highly touted system for verifying the amount of carbon stored by the projects in the voluntary market.
VCS provides a global standard and program for approval of credible voluntary offsets. External experts accredited by VCS will verify carbon storage once every five years.
The project has also been designed to meet the project design standards set by the Climate Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCB), which has one of the highest integrity carbon market standards, by:
-
Mitigating climate change. The initial project offering is 8,250 short tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from 47 acres over 70 years, with those newly restored forests being protected for future generations.
-
Increasing regional biodiversity. By protecting the Tensas River Basin Project, a vital connection will be made between fragmented habitat for the Louisiana Black Bear, as well as other native species. Water quality is also expected to improve, affecting a number of rare and endangered aquatic species.
-
Sustaining livelihoods. The reforestation of the land will help the State of Louisiana meet Clean Water Act requirements by improving a major tributary of the Tensas River. The project will also contribute to rural economies by employing local planting crews and consulting foresters.
Offsetting Your Carbon Footprint
The Conservancy’s Carbon Offset Program helps provide an opportunity to offset your own carbon footprint. By contributing to the protection of additional land to guarantee carbon storage, and by following some of the highest standards of project design and implementation recognized by the carbon market, the Conservancy’s offset program meets high standards of integrity and authenticity.
|
|
Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Byron Jorjorian (cypress trees); Photo © Arkansas Parks and Tourism (Louisiana black bear).
