This story is part of our Living Carbon series, covering the power of natural climate solutions for communities, biodiversity and the planet. Explore the Living Carbon stories.
What Lawrence Connor remembers most about growing up in Nett Lake, Minnesota, was the vast nature and abundance of wildlife. A lush canopy of birch, maple, oak, and evergreens covered his village. Throughout his childhood, he lived on dirt roads and undeveloped land. The wealth of trees made it impossible to see across the village. Hunting season brought abundant duck, moose, and deer meat, and the land flourished with wild rice.
“We’d get a lot of wild rice and it kept us going in the hard times, but the wild rice is always like an act of God,” Connor recalled. “You could never predict a good crop from the next year being a worse crop or a bumper crop. You know, it was always in the Creator's hands."
Over time, Nett Lake changed due to deforestation and overharvesting. Forests thinned and game population declined. Traditional plants like sweetgrass and sage became harder to grow. Today, the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa is making strides to change this by embarking on a first-of-its-kind carbon credits project to buy back its traditional land and restore its ecological and cultural value.
Hear the voices of the Akiing Azhenan carbon project.
Taking the Land Back
In 2022, the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa bought back 28,000 acres of their traditional lands as part of an effort they call Akiing Azhenan—or “taking the land back” in the Anishinaabe language. With collaboration and support from The Nature Conservancy and the National Indian Carbon Coalition, the Band is stewarding its land for cultural, ecological, and economic benefit to create measurable climate benefits through forestry practices that increase carbon storage. Through carbon markets, the project will help repay the loan that enabled the land reacquisition.
Video: How carbon markets fight climate change
If we want to keep the climate in safe boundaries, we need to reach net-zero emissions as soon as possible. But eliminating some carbon sources will be easier than others. That’s where carbon markets can help. > See the video (2:45)
“This is one of the first [projects] in the United States that is using the climate, community and biodiversity standard in the project,” shares Rane Cortez, former senior advisor for equitable carbon markets at TNC. “It's a model for how tribes can use carbon to buy back their traditional homelands. It's a really powerful demonstration of how carbon finance can really drive the restoration of lands to tribal ownership across the United States.”
TNC supports community-led carbon projects like this around the world—from the ancient mountains in eastern Africa to the steppe in Patagonia. High-integrity projects follow rigorous requirements for additionality, durability and community leadership, helping build revenue and financial support for long-term resilience.
Quote: Cody Swanson
The work we do today probably won't be seen by us into our old age. A lot of the things we do day to day are for the next generation and for the generation after that.
A Forest Breathes Again
For decades, most of the reacquired land was owned and intensively harvested by a private timber company, Potlatch, preventing the land from regenerating and maturing into an older, structurally diverse forest.
In the Band’s hands, the Improved Forest Management approach minimizes commercial harvest and allows natural succession, creating significant additional carbon storage compared to the previous land use.
Our global insights, straight to your inbox
Get our latest research, insights and solutions to today’s sustainability challenges.
Sign UpThe main purpose of the Band’s forest stewardship plan is to support the long-term healing of their homeland. Carbon credits generated through the project provide capital to repay the loan used to reacquire the land. Resources are also invested in long-term stewardship of healthy forests, water, wildlife, and cultural practices on the Bois Forte Reservation for seven generations into the future.
“The work we do today probably won't be seen by us into our old age,” says Cody Swanson, the Forestry Program Manager for the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa. “A lot of the things we do day to day are for the next generation and for the generation after that.”
Taking Inventory
By taking inventory of tree stands from year to year, foresters can determine tree growth and, subsequently, the amount of carbon stored in each stand. It is an intensive effort to ensure quality and integrity.
Dynamic baselines
This methodology accurately accounts for how forest projects sequester and store carbon. By using it, projects can show they are additional, meaning they are genuinely capturing emissions which would not have occurred without the financial incentive of carbon credits. This new methodology is approved by Verra's Verified Carbon Standard and IC-VCM's Core Carbon Principles.
> Check out our infographic explainer.
Indigenous-Led Climate Solutions
Community ownership over carbon projects leads to more ethical and effective interventions as the communities implement practices that meet their needs. In leading the Akiing Azhenan carbon project, the Bois Forte Band is pairing Traditional Ecological Knowledge with the latest forest carbon science to protect land, wildlife and culture. This approach supports bringing forest and game population back to healthy levels while ensuring that carbon sequestration targets are met in alignment with the Band’s values. And it creates space for younger generations to learn traditional land stewardship practices.
A winter scene where a forester takes off his gloves and sits next to a hole in the frozen body of water.
Investing in Cultural Revitalization
The loss of their homeland has contributed to a loss of cultural knowledge for younger generations. Carol Burr, the Band’s planning and community development director, learned how to fish and hunt growing up, but sees how these teachings haven’t been passed down to younger generations. As the forest and game of their lands repopulate, she works to bridge the disconnect between youth and their cultural relationship to nature.
Tribal leaders have offered classes on wild rice harvesting or hunting for deer and duck, but not consistently enough for youth to integrate these skills into their lives. Carbon finance—under standards such as CCB and Verra—allows the Band to reinvest revenue into language classes, seasonal teachings and land‑based learning. Through Akiing Azhenan they not only restore wildlife and habitat but revitalize Anishinaabe culture.
Brian Whiteman, a tribal member and a conservation officer for the Bois Forte Band, is among those carrying Anishinaabe knowledge forward. Seeing declining youth engagement in nature encouraged him to learn as much as possible about the tribal lands and wildlife. He views cultural learning and stewardship through the carbon project as acts of protection—of people, the Anishinaabe culture and nature.
“As an Anishinaabe person, we're very connected to what's going on around us,” says Whiteman. “We can learn so much just from being in the bush, you know, taking in what's around us, the animals and how they live, the trees and just really learning how they work and how the trees live. There's so much knowledge in everything around us.”
A Great Gray Owl (Strix nebulosa) perches on a tree over the winter landscape of the Bois Forte Reservation in Minnesota, U.S.
Nature as Family
Rather than viewing these forests as resources, the Band understands them as relatives—beings that require respect and reciprocity. This worldview shapes their approach in monitoring carbon sequestration across a remote ecosystem.
Many carbon monitoring plots are difficult to reach without causing disturbance. The forestry team often conducts measurements in winter, when Minnesota can reach –50°F. These conditions make stewardship challenging, but they also underscore the Band’s commitment to the project’s high quality and to careful stewardship.
An aerial image of a portion of forest in the winter. The long shadows of the slender trees are cast on the snow cover underneath.
Carbon Finance for a Thriving Future
The Bois Forte Carbon Project illustrates the broad benefits of Indigenous‑led natural climate solutions. By combining Anishinaabe land stewardship with carbon finance, the Band strengthens ecosystems and community wellbeing. Carbon markets create opportunities for long-term stewardship and resilient livelihoods.
The reacquisition of these 28,000 acres expanded Bois Forte’s ownership of its homeland more than 50%. Through Akiing Azhenan, the Band has secured the financial means to steward these forests today and for future generations. In returning these forests to Indigenous stewardship, the Band is reaffirming a longstanding truth: the health of the people is inseparable from the health of the land. The trees are so much more than carbon stores—they are relatives whose well-being shapes the life of the community. Caring for them now ensures that, long into the future, they will continue to offer strength, resilience, and belonging to the Bois Forte people.
Related Articles
The Climate Ambition Gap
How a new vision of the voluntary carbon market can help the world reach critical global climate targets.
Living Carbon: Stories of Nature’s Climate Solutions
In this series, we showcase innovative carbon projects in Africa, the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania, Chile's Valdivian Forest and the Emerald Edge of North America's Pacific Coast.
What are carbon markets and how do we work with them?
The Nature Conservancy advances Natural Climate Solutions through many strategies, including high-quality carbon markets that effectively reduce harmful emissions and equitably benefit communities.