Isramart : Trees sold for carbon credits on Olympic Peninsula

Isramart news:


PORT TOWNSEND — Jefferson Land Trust has sold 400 metric tons of its timber resources. But it didn't sell the wood.

In a transaction unique on the North Olympic Peninsula and in the Pacific Northwest, the sale was for the carbon stored in the trees, not the wood.

The land trust is being paid $8,000, not for board-feet of timber in the Bulis Forest Preserve near Old Fort Townsend, but for the carbon collected in trees that remove it from the atmosphere through photosynthesis.

In return, ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia — a nonprofit financial institution that works with local organizations to promote economic opportunity and a healthy environment — offsets three years of its "carbon footprint" — or the amount of carbon-dioxide emissions created by the firm in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

By purchasing the carbon locked in the trees and soil of the forest, it acquires "carbon credits" that can offset other activities that create emissions.

The agreement, made for 100 years, is the first transaction involving carbon credits on the peninsula and the first direct purchase by a firm in the Pacific Northwest.

"This is really the first sale of its kind, so it is very exciting," said Barbara Arnn, communications manager for Jefferson Land Trust.

"There have been some large sales of this type through brokers collecting land for many corporations, but this is the first small and direct purchase of this type in the Pacific Northwest."

Trees naturally collect carbon during photosynthesis. They "breathe" in carbon dioxide and "breathe" out oxygen, keeping the carbon that they take from the air locked in woody material.

That carbon is valuable to companies that want to offset their carbon emissions.

By purchasing the rights to the trees, allowing them to be managed and letting them undergo the natural process of collecting carbon, businesses and corporations can receive carbon credit.

In a carbon trade, the owner of the forest is paid to delay harvesting so that the forest will continue to hold carbon.

The land trust could act as a seller of carbon credits because of a donation of a 26-acre working forest — part of the 100-acre Bulis Forest Preserve — made 10 years ago to provide the nonprofit conservation group with income from timber harvests to manage the rest of the preserve.

Now, the land trust will get income from letting the trees grow.