Over 700 eligible Pennsylvania landowners owning over 89,000 acres have already expressed interest in learning more about this program.
“These numbers may seem impressive for a program that recently started during the Covid -19 pandemic and was only eligible in a small number of PA counties,” said John Hoover, Chair, PA Tree Farm Program. “But there is much more privately owned forestland in Pennsylvania that may qualify for this program.”
The program was launched in April of 2020 by the American Forest Foundation in partnership with The Nature Conservancy as a pilot carbon sequestration incentive program.
The program 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 through 2021.
Click Here to determine your eligibility.
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.
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.
(Reprinted from the latest PA Forestry Association newsletter. Click Here to sign up for your own copy-- bottom of page.)
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[Posted: May 8, 2021] PA Environment Digest
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