Isramart : Firm sells carbon credits from forest near Neah Bay

Isramart news;
A for-profit subsidiary of Portland, Ore.-based Ecotrust has sold its first carbon credits from forest land it owns near Neah Bay.

The deal puts 3,276 acres on the North Olympic Peninsula into the market for credits designed to offset business and government greenhouse gas emissions.

The land, which is off of the Sooes River, is about 15 miles south of Neah Bay, confirmed Grant Munro of Port Angeles, a timber broker whose business, Munro LLC, managed the property for Ecotrust until recently.


Private equity group

The Eco Products Fund, a private-equity group managed by Equator LLC and New Forests, will buy the carbon credits from the land.

Ecotrust, a nonprofit, purchased the land -- part of a large tree farm -- from bankrupt Crown Pacific's lenders with the intent of eventually selling carbon credits from the forest, which is dominated by Douglas fir, Sitka spruce, western hemlock and western red cedar.

By the time Ecotrust had purchased the land, all the old growth had been cut, Munro said.

"It had all been replanted and had very nice young timber growing on it," Munro said.

Before Ecotrust bought the land, it was managed in a traditional industrial model, Munro said.

"Ecotrust has a model of harvesting differently," using thinning and "patch cuts," which are small clearcuts of from 4 to 5 acres, Munro said.

The harvesting model is intended to both be better for the immediate environment -- the Sooes River, although small, is an important salmon habitat for the Makah, Munro said -- and maintain the amount of carbon collected in the trees.

Carbon collects in living trees that remove it from the atmosphere through photosynthesis.

Selling carbon credits

Eco Products will sell carbon credits to businesses and government agencies trying to offset the carbon emissions generated by their operations.

That market is voluntary now, driven by buyers aiming for a "green" image and by utilities and factories looking to stockpile high-quality credits in anticipation of possible federal and regional caps on carbon emissions.

The deal is part of Ecotrust Forest Management's long-term plan to purchase hundreds of thousands of formerly clear-cut acres from Alaska through Northern California using income from carbon credits and timber sales.

Ecotrust aims to improve habitat in its 13,000 acres of forest land and increase carbon storage to combat climate change.

The company also plans to keep sending logs to local mills through "patch cuts" and thinning.

Jobs on its forest lands should eventually double the work created by industrial-style clear-cuts, said Bettina von Hagen, CEO of the forest management group.

Northwest forests "are a tremendous and unique carbon store" said von Hagen, a former banker.

"We also believe very strongly that the Pacific Northwest is a great place to grow trees, and that wood is a great material for housing relative to other building materials like concrete or steel."

Von Hagen said she can't disclose the contract price Ecotrust is getting for the credits. But the deal is expected to generate hundreds of thousand of credits over 100 years, she said.

Not first such transaction

The deal is not the first carbon credits transaction on the Peninsula.

In December, in a transaction unique on the North Olympic Peninsula and in the Pacific Northwest, Jefferson Land Trust sold 400 metric tons of carbon credits to Shorebank Enterprise Cascadia for $8,000.

The land trust sold the carbon collected in the living trees in the Bulis Forest Preserve near Old Fort Townsend.

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

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

All forests store carbon in the trees and in the soil, but the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest have the greatest carbon accumulations of any ecosystem on Earth, the land trust said.

Critics' questions

Critics of carbon credits question whether they're truly helping the environment or just giving polluters an easy alternative to cutting emissions.

If carbon emissions are regulated by the government, big emitters like coal plants or paper mills would likely be allowed to offset a portion of their emissions by buying credits.

The going rate for credits under Europe's "cap-and-trade" carbon regulation ranges from $20 to $30 per metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent, von Hagen said.