S.7 Ep.4: Down Home Carbon: Climate Solutions from Family Forests

Managing forests for carbon—and navigating emerging carbon markets—can feel overwhelming, especially for family forest owners managing smaller parcels. So how can landowners with just a couple forty-acre parcels participate in these opportunities? And what does carbon-enhanced silviculture actually look like at that scale? In this episode of SilviCast, we sit down with Brittany VanderWall, Lynn Riley, and Richard Campbell from the American Forest Foundation to break down the essentials of the Family Forest Carbon Program. They share practical insights on how family forest owners can access carbon markets, implement climate-smart forest practices, and make the most of their land—without needing thousands of acres to get started. 

Transcript

S7 E4 - FFCP

[Greg Edge]

Welcome to Silvicast, the podcast about all things silviculture. I'm Greg Edge, retired silviculturist with the Wisconsin DNR Division of Forestry.

[Brad Hutnik]

And I'm Brad Hutnik, Wisconsin DNR silviculturist, still working until I can afford to replace my rust bucket of a minivan. 

[Greg Edge]

And we're your hosts for today's show. Hey, good morning, Brad.

[Brad Hutnik]

Good morning. 

[Greg Edge]

So how was your weekend? Did you and Mary do anything special for Valentine's Day?

[Brad Hutnik]

Woo. We did. You know, I'm a big spender, Greg. 

[Greg Edge]

I know you are.

[Brad Hutnik]

I am willing to, you know, lay it all out there. 

[Greg Edge]

Okay. So where did you guys go?

[Brad Hutnik]

There's this beautiful little place. It's just on the edge of town called Culver's. 

[Greg Edge]

Oh yeah. The French Bistro. I, yeah, I think I've stopped there. 

[Brad Hutnik]

You know, it's, let's just say no expenses were spared. I'm telling you, whatever you want, I'm in. 

[Greg Edge]

The double deluxe butter burger?

[Brad Hutnik]

Hey, you want to get two of them? Have at it. You know what I mean?

[Greg Edge]

So, okay. Did you at least go for the free scoop? 

[Brad Hutnik]

Oh, the free scoop? No, no. We, we went for the concrete mixer, Greg. 

[Greg Edge]

Oh, you did go big time! 

[Brad Hutnik]

Oh yeah. I'm not going to say I didn't have a coupon for buy one, get one free. That's that's that. I don't think Mary, hopefully she's not listening, but it's Spring Green, right?

It's not like the, like the metropolitan lacrosse area where you have, you know, everything in the world at your fingertips.

[Greg Edge]

A hundred bars. 

[Brad Hutnik]

Yeah, that's right. Well, there's nothing wrong with that, Greg. 

[Greg Edge]

So, uh, well, Brad, that's interesting story, but did you, you, at least you didn't need to purchase a silviculture Valentine? 

[Brad Hutnik]

Okay. You're, you're trying to trick me with something here, but…

[Greg Edge]

I am, I am. 

[Brad Hutnik]

Okay. Well, what pray tell is a silvicultural Valentine?

[Greg Edge]

Well, I'm glad you asked because over the weekend we received an email from longtime listener, Kurt in Green Bay. Thanks Kurt. 

[Brad Hutnik]

Yep. And hello, Kurt. 

[Greg Edge]

We're glad to see you're listening. And he sent us an interesting story that recently aired on Wisconsin public radio.

It was reported that Waukesha County land conservancy will cut down a buck thorn, write your ex's name on the stump and poison that sucker. So it never comes back. So for five bucks, you can get some closure for that former thorn in your side. Get it?

*sad trombone noise*

[Brad Hutnik]

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's good. I, I gotta say it's harsh, but I do love it. I, that's a great idea.

And what would you do? That would be like closure and habitat restoration.

[Greg Edge]

I do like the fundraisers tagline, which is because just like buckthorn and let's be honest, some exes, if you don't deal with it properly, it tends to come back.

[Brad Hutnik]

Yeah. You know, that's interesting. And who knew that the science of silviculture can even improve your love life.

[Greg Edge]

This is what we have been telling people for years, Brad. Silviculture stands at the center of a well-ordered universe.

[Brad Hutnik]

It's I'm believing that. And speaking of things that come back today on Silvicast, we're going to touch on a subject that we haven't talked about in a while, carbon. So remember way back in 2022, we had a really, really good conversation with Ali Koshiba.

And we talked about the basics of forest carbon. 

[Greg Edge]

I remember. Yep. And then we did a second episode and we talked with Luke Nave and Todd Antle from the Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science. And we talked about how to impact carbon through Silviculture.

[Brad Hutnik]

And so the topic is, you know, I think this is one of the cool things. It keeps evolving. So today on Silvicast, we're going to dive once more into the topic of forest carbon with one of our longtime sponsors, the Family Forest Carbon Program.

This will be a chance to update listeners on forest carbon markets and explore what carbon enhanced Silviculture looks like for the private forest landowner. So joining us will be Brittany VanderWalll, Lynn Riley, and Richard Campbell from the American Forest Foundation's Family Forest Carbon Program.

*greg yelling noises*

 Gregor, what are you doing over there?

[Greg Edge]

Brad killing Buckthorn is cathartic! Thank you to our season sponsors, Family Forest Carbon Program, and Nelson paint company. You make the Silvicast world go round.

[Brad Hutnik]

Brittany VanderWall, Lynn Riley, Richard Campbell, welcome to Silvicast. Before we get into the meat of our discussion today, why don't you guys tell us a little bit about yourselves, what you do, where you work, things like that. So I'll start with you, Brittany.

[Brittany VanderWall]

So my title is senior forestry manager for the Midwest. I'm based in Rogers City, which is in Northern Michigan, about an hour South of the Mackinac bridge. And my role with FFCP is primarily regional technical assistance and managing internal and external foresters.

[Brad Hutnik]

Lynn, how about you?

[Lynn Riley]

Sure. Lynn Riley. I'm the lead scientist at American Forest Foundation.

I live in Preston, Virginia. It's pretty close to DC area. And my role is kind of bolstering the science behind what we offer to landowners who might be considering enrolling in our forest carbon program, as well as the methodology behind.

How we turn what folks are doing on the ground in their forest into a number of what's the actual climate impact that we can associate that associate with that in any given time period. We also do a lot of kind of external communicating about that and kind of within the broader carbon market, which we might get into a little bit. How can we continue to drive that scientific integrity, not just for our programs, but for the market at large?

[Brad Hutnik]

Cool. Thanks. And Richard.

[Richard Campbell]

Hey, my name's Richard Campbell. I'm calling in from Montpelier, Vermont. I work on the science team with Lynn.

And basically what we're trying to do all the way around is making sure that the things we offer landowners have a real benefit to the forest and real benefit to the climate.

[Brad Hutnik]

Richard, you're our… Greg, how many, how many guests have we had from Vermont in this show? 

[Greg Edge]

Oh, well, we got a lot from Vermont.  There's a lot going on in Vermont. 

[Brad Hutnik]

For some reason, Vermont is huge in this show. So I don't know why, but something's going on in Vermont.

[Greg Edge]

Well, nice to meet everybody. Brad, why don't you get us started out here?

[Brad Hutnik]

Sure. Maybe to get us rolling, get things started and you guys could decide how you want to answer this among yourselves. What inspired the creation of the Family Forest Carbon Program?

[Richard Campbell]

I can start and then, you know, we've got two other experts in different areas of the program. So we started thinking about this in probably 2017, 2018. When I say we, I mean, American Forest Foundation and the Nature Conservancy.

We were really thinking about three intertwined problems. The first is that there's a need for good forestry on the ground, right? There's private ownerships are the plurality of forest lands in the U.S. and most folks are managing them with great intentions, but without a lot of planning. The second problem is that there is a growing market for climate mitigation for carbon credits. But that market really has been shutting out smallholders for a bunch of reasons I'm sure we can get into right. Basically, it's really expensive and it's really technically difficult.

Right. And so that sort of shuts out small ownerships. And then the third, of course, is climate change, right?

Climate change is the biggest threat to the forest in the U.S. and the improved management of forest is one of the greatest opportunities that we have as a country to make a difference through the management of natural systems. So all three of those things put together, the obvious answer seemed to be to us was to create a program that would offer landowners incentives to manage their forests in ways that were helpful to climate change, as well as making the forest more resilient to the changes that are coming.

[Lynn Riley]

I was just going to jump in and add a little bit to what Richard said on the climate piece. So right around that same time that we were seeing that carbon market opportunity, a couple of really key pieces of research also came out that I think I might have even sent y'all that we could maybe include in the podcast notes too for people who are interested. But basically, there is this research led by the Nature Conservancy that showed of all the things that we might be able to do with how people manage ecosystems, what are the top opportunities?

And improving forest management, like Richard said, was the second largest one by a wide margin. The largest one was planting trees. So reforestation, afforestation, that type of thing.

And so with those kind of being the top two by a lot, and especially seeing that potential in the U.S. and like Richard said, knowing that family owned land makes up such a big proportion of the forest land in the U.S., we were really trying to figure out like how can we make all these things fit together and address the climate piece? Because we also know that climate could become a threat to family forests as well if we don't do something to address it. So how can we work with family landowners to mitigate the more negative climate impacts with these folks?

[Brad Hutnik]

So there are a lot of programs out there just kind of doing a little reading, looking at the other things. What set you guys apart from the other programs?

[Richard Campbell]

It's hard for me to talk about the specifics of other programs, right? But I think I can talk about what makes us us. And there's sort of two things that we really want to, there's a few things that we really kind of hang our hat on that we think define us as a program.

First is that we base everything we do in forest management, right? The landowners that we work with, that's the key. When they succeed, the program succeeds.

And so everything we offer is based in that. That's sort of from the ecological and social side of things. From the climate side of things, we're really, really proud of the way that we do our carbon accounting.

We think that there's no point in selling carbon credits unless it represents something real, the number that you come up with and the thing that you sell actually represents the same number of tons of carbon dioxide that's not in the atmosphere because of the program. And so the way we do our accounting is pretty innovative. And so we're very proud of that.

So those two big things, the climate integrity and the commitment to landowner and forest success are what I think really defines us. That said, there are lots of programs, right, that are also trying to accomplish those two goals as well.

[Greg Edge]

Richard, did you say that the program started in 2018, was it or?

[Richard Campbell]

We started thinking up in 2017-18 before my time, but we launched it officially in Pennsylvania in 2020.

[Greg Edge]

Okay. In 2020. And so how big is the program today in terms of like number of landowners who are enrolled in the acres and where are those acres situated?

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah. So by the time this airs, it'll be, these numbers will be out of date. So we're enrolling as of last week, we had enrolled somewhere between 185,000 and 190,000 acres, just, just shy of 1400 landowners.

So that means that our, you know, our median, our mean landowner size is about 130, but there's a couple of large ones that anchor that in our median size. But what we think of as the real average is somewhere in the 80 to 85 acre range. So we really are truly hitting the smallholders where people are enrolling.

We're working in the upper lake states in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and then essentially the whole Eastern seaboard from Maine down all the way into the Gulf coast in Alabama, working in natural forest types throughout that region.

[Greg Edge]

And so thinking about the Midwest, since we're here in the Midwest, my understanding is the program focuses on particular forest types that are eligible. So what are those forest types? First of all, maybe a good place to start here in the Midwest.

[Brittany VanderWall]

Yeah So I can answer that. Traditionally in the past, we focused more on hardwoods, but we've since expanded our offering to landowners to most cover types, except for predominantly Aspen monocultures.

So a landowner now could create a project with us that is mixed with a variety of different forest types down to a stocking of 80 basal area. So that's given us a lot of creative flexibility with landowners to make innovative projects, larger projects that encompass more forest types and can encompass, you know, a little bit more of their goals and writ large across a larger landscape and ownership size.

[Brad Hutnik]

Does that influence the type of practices you can use? So thinking across all those different cover types, are there certain practices you wouldn't use that we kind of have in our toolkit or I'm curious about that?

[Brittany VanderWall]

Yeah, I'd say broadly from a forestry perspective with our harvest allowance, which is about 25 percent of the basal area over the 20 year contract. So for those listening, our contracts right now are 20 years for landowners. So that 25 percent basal area allowance can come a variety of different ways.

I'd say primarily single tree and group tree selection are the two silvicultural systems that I would say mesh the best with our program because we allow for a variety of different forest types that allows for, I would say, a greater flexibility in that 25 percent because a landowner, as you know, our forest systems in the Midwest are a gradient. I would say, too, compared to our other geographies, we're more diverse from an FIA group type standpoint compared to some of the other geographies. So wrapping these in allows for a little more creative harvesting in that allowance.

And then those larger projects then, of course, as a one to one ratio for that 25 percent, allow for just a greater flexibility in that harvest allowance and what they can take and where they can take it and how that harvest can look.

[Brad Hutnik]

It sounds like that might actually be a really good fit for ecological silviculture, irregular shelterwood systems like that.

[Brittany VanderWall]

Yeah, it probably depends on the size of the project and the density, because we of course, we derive our additionality off of, you know, tree growth and, you know, harvesting. We have to toe that fine line to make sure we're within our allowance. But I'd say, sure, like depending on the way that the forest gradient is distributed across an average project in the Midwest, I'd say there's some creative flexibility for that.

[Greg Edge]

So to put this in my forestry head lingo, you're saying that it could be a lot of different hardwood cover types. So we're talking northern hardwoods here in the Midwest or oak types would also qualify, just maybe not that aspen monoculture.

[Brittany VanderWall]

Yeah, so oaks, oaks, hardwoods, as you spoke about, but also like spruce fir, what we would consider just a gradient mix of really any cover type, except for if the predominant basal area is aspen, that's really our only hard line as to what we wouldn't enroll now. Now it can be a gradient of really anything, including conifers as well, except for plantations, I should note. And that's across the program.

We don't allow for plantation enrollment.

[Brad Hutnik]

Greg, I'm surprised you're not asking about your favorite jack pine.

[Greg Edge]

Well, that is a really special tree, but I don't know, Brittany, is that qualify or is that it's not a plantation?

[Brittany VanderWall]

It does. But surprisingly, I would say across I've been with the program since 2022, and we only recently started looking at conifers, but I haven't actually seen a lot of that in our interested landowners that have enrolled, approached our program. Now that you mention it, I haven't really seen a whole lot of that.

But but it is. Yeah. Technically, yes, it could enroll natural, natural pine, pine could enroll.

[Brad Hutnik]

So what I hear you saying, Brittany, is that maybe only freaky people really like jack pine. OK, all right. All right.

Whatever.

[Brittany VanderWall]

You said that. Not me.

[Brad Hutnik]

OK, I think that's what Greg was trying to say.

[Greg Edge]

Enough of discouraging that premier tree species. So what Brad was getting at, too, I think were some of the forest management practices that maybe add to that carbon storage or meet those carbon storage goals that you have. And you said so you have this was a twenty five percent harvest allowance to, you know, maybe minimize that removal and emphasize growth.

So there are there other practices that they would employ to increase that carbon sequestration and storage such as, I don't know, extended rotations?

[Brittany VanderWall]

Yeah, I would refer maybe to our practice, generally speaking, as an extended rotation, like a landowner can cut up to that twenty five percent, but they don't have to. And that twenty five percent is maybe striking a balance between what we consider as business as usual and that difference as to what we generate our additionality from. So, yeah, the idea, right, being that you enroll for 20 years or maybe longer, you renew your contract and the timber grows bigger over time, larger diameters, storing and sequestering more carbon.

And and that's kind of the long term trend and visualization of what our practices are getting at.

[Lynn Riley]

Yeah, I wonder, too, if it'd be interesting just to share kind of why we don't currently enroll Aspen, because that's obviously like a really prevalent forest type in the Midwest. And it kind of gets at that point that Brittany was making around additionality, which is we really looked heavily at Aspen. I think we tried to look at it every which way that we could to see, is there actually a way that we could improve upon the existing common forest management in terms of its carbon outcomes?

And at least within kind of a 20 year contract, which is what most landowners are feel OK about signing with their land, we just couldn't find a way to improve upon it. And in other words, common Aspen management in a lot of ways today actually is already optimized for carbon outcomes. There wasn't really a clear way for us to improve upon that through a program like this.

I won't say that will always be the case. I think we would love to find a way to engage that forest type and see if there is something we could improve upon. But at least so far, the current management practices are pretty good when it comes to climate for that forest type.

So that's why it's not currently offered today.

[Greg Edge]

And isn't it also that some of those partial harvest systems that Brittany mentioned, you know, are not often what we employ in the Aspen type. It's, you know, we tend to coppice the entire stand at one time. And so for that shorter time period, you know, that carbon balance changes.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah, we're always trying to find a fit between the appropriate silviculture for the stand type and the silviculture that's going to lead to durable carbon gains. Right. When you have a species that, like you said, is managed on an even age basis and tends to be short lived, it means you've got a pretty narrow regeneration window and you should probably try to take advantage of it versus sitting it aside for 20 years and maybe losing your losing your opportunity.

[Brad Hutnik]

Seems like there's flexibility and flexibility often means that, you know, you might think that you could do a lot of different things, but I think it actually means you have to have a lot of expertise in order to figure out which is going to be the best option. And so I was really intrigued. You guys work with consulting foresters and have approved foresters through the Family Forest Carbon Program.

How does that work?

[Brittany VanderWall]

Yeah, so we have a lot of relationships with consulting foresters, not just in the Midwest, but across our whole geography and in the Midwest. I think we have between 35 and 40 maybe individuals that are signed already to participate with us across the geography and and they've been working with us since our pilot in the Midwest in 2022. And it can look a couple of different ways.

So there's two different ways foresters participate with us. One is called participating, and that would just be we can send you new leads if landowners come into the system that are looking to work with a private sector forester and don't currently have a connection. They've maybe never worked with a forester or don't have that that connection already.

We can provide it pretty easily. And of course, they can mutually decide if they want to work together. But those leads can be really helpful to private sector foresters forming a relationship with us.

And the other way is approved, which is, you know, foresters that already get a lot of business or have a lot going on do clients only where they have clients that are a good fit for the program or are really interested in checking it out. And we connect the clients directly with those consulting foresters that refer them to us or they find their way to us naturally and then let us know who their forester is and we connect them that way. But those foresters, we pay them a flat rate based on the acreage size for doing eligibility checks out in the woods.

So we have two different ways, right? There's pre-enrollment. So that'd be going out with a landowner or not, if the landowner is not available, cruising a little bit, looking for the stocking and the species makeup and deriving the geographic footprint of what the project would be, where we'd set that up.

And they take that inventory and that data and they send it to us and we check it out. And that's that's kind of the main pre-enrollment thing that they do for us. That's probably the heaviest lift currently.

And the other big one that's beginning to grow now in the Midwest is providing forest management plan assistance. So this is, of course, across the whole geography. We have two offerings to landowners.

All landowners have to get a forest management plan. That's part of our requirement for enrollment. So we will either give them a stipend, which is based on their full forested acreage.

So plan would cover the whole thing. And they can choose that private sector forester to write more of a complex, maybe, plan that they decide to work on together. Or they can choose a template version that we've created that covers the specifications of the Family Forest Carbon Program, but maybe isn't as intense as like a current use program.

So the landowner can choose that, which we can provide, or the private sector forester can also be paid by us to provide that service for a landowner. So there's a lot of like, we pay the forester to assist the landowner throughout this journey, throughout this process. And then there's other things they can do.

Like if there's a contract that goes awry, we can have a private sector forester go out and find where that issue was and put that data into our system and help us with those types of situations as well. So there's quite a few different opportunities for foresters, just depending on their appetite for participation and what their geography is and how much they could, they could work with us.

[Brad Hutnik]

And it sounds like maybe the first time you do it, that's going to be, you know, like everything, the first time you do it is when you actually learn, would they be talking to you, Brittany, or other people with the program to kind of work through those very first kind of operations within the system?

[Brittany VanderWall]

Yeah, certainly. We have a training program where they could sit down with me and I'd go through the whole specifications of the program. And I'd say for the first few projects, we work pretty closely together.

That way we work out the kinks and the understandings of the details that we need to work out on the ground. So definitely a lot of technical assistance. That's a big part of my job and the other senior forestry managers across the geography is helping those private sector foresters that work with us understand all of the nuances and work well with the program.

[Greg Edge]

Lynn, you mentioned that you sent Brad and I a couple of papers. So I really appreciate that kind of provides us with some background. And just looking at those, it was describing what we call natural climate solutions.

And are those, what are those first of all, and are those principles that then the Family Forest Carbon Program tries to utilize?

[Lynn Riley]

Yeah, absolutely. So natural climate solutions are basically any way that we might think of where people are working with ecosystems to produce some sort of climate benefits. So that's a pretty broad category.

So just to give some examples, that's like we've been talking about with this program so far, there's a category of improved forest management. So on existing forests that people are managing, how can we improve upon that for climate outcomes? There's kind of another bucket, which is all about planting trees.

So any sort of reforestation or afforestation, there's several other categories. So there's some like agricultural natural climate solutions for more like cropland or pasture land and improving practices there, maybe in terms of soil carbon outcomes. There's also more protection based practices.

So if there are existing forested areas that are at risk of some sort of degradation or actually deforestation, or maybe conversion from development, then can we put protections there to keep those forests standing? And so you can imagine kind of throughout all the projects globally, different countries and biomes tend to have more or less of those. So in tropical forests, you tend to see a lot of that reduced deforestation practice where there's high deforestation threats.

Here in the US, we tend to see a lot more of that improved forest management and reforestation efforts, although there certainly is also a need, I would say, for avoided conversion type practices. Even within that improved forest management kind of broad bucket, there's a lot of ways that we might improve forest management. So like Brittany said, a lot of what we do kind of falls into the category of extended rotations with kind of those allowances for some active management.

But there's also things like removing competing vegetation or reducing high severity wildfire risk out west, or maybe even improving soil microbiomes. So using some fungal inoculants to improve the soils and enhance growth. So it's really broad in some ways, but then once you kind of get into how are we actually going to account for the climate benefits, each of these is usually associated with kind of a specific accounting methodology to go from, okay, what are people doing in this ecosystem to what's the actual climate numbers that we can ascertain a program actually caused in this place.

So, yeah, like you said, in that research, there's several other sort of principles that natural climate solutions should be upholding to be used that we do follow really closely. So one is as we're designing these systems, we want it to be something sustainable. So you could think, for example, of, hey, what if we took this cropland and planted trees on it?

That might be great purely from carbon outcomes. But actually, are we risking food outcomes in that instance? Like that's not sustainable.

That's not something we want to do. Or even in existing forest systems, you know, in theory, we could just protect a bunch of forests, but that would be risking wood products production. And that's also something that we certainly don't want to be doing.

So there's these sorts of tradeoffs that we have to wrestle with. And that's something we do spend a lot of time and energy thinking about is how can we sort of thread that needle of getting both the positive climate outcomes and not having some of these other net arms, you might say. So that's a big one.

Another big principle is something called additionality, which is kind of this concept of, as I'm sure your listeners know really well, forests are already sequestering and storing lots of carbon. And the people who manage forests are part of that. So active forest management, regeneration, that's a big part of keeping carbon stored in these systems.

So when we say we want our program to be doing something additional, we mean we want to be going above and beyond that stuff that's already happening, that the trees are already doing and the people managing those trees are already doing. So it seems kind of like a basic concept, but in order to to actually tease out that additional part, you actually get into some of the most hotly debated parts of carbon markets when you get to additionality. And that's this topic of if we want to know what our additional above and beyond benefit was, we have to first define a baseline that we're starting with.

And how do you define that baseline? And this is really a fundamental challenge, because if we think about any specific parcel of land, we can only ever observe one outcome on that land, the outcome where they enrolled and participated in a program or where they didn't. Ideally, the scenario where they didn't participate would be our perfect ideal baseline, but we'll never actually be able to observe and measure that once they've enrolled in the program for a certain period of time.

We'll only be able to observe and measure that time when they're enrolled. So there's lots of different thoughts and methodologies out there for how you then reconstruct that baseline scenario because you can't directly observe it. Some methods kind of look across common practice.

They might use national forest inventory data or forest models like the forest vegetation simulator that the Forest Service manages to sort of model out what would have happened in the absence of the program. That can be a little bit tricky, especially for family landowners, because you have to be able to accurately predict what would have happened on that land. And when we're talking even about like the next 20 years, a lot of landowners might say or have intentions to manage a certain way, maybe even have it written down in their management plan.

But we also know that that doesn't always pan out for folks for a variety of reasons, maybe financial shortfall, things like that. So that's one common approach has some shortcomings. Another approach, which is what we take, is utilizing the most similar areas that we can find that are not enrolled and then observing those as almost like an experimental control over time.

So we have our enrolled areas that we observe over time, and then we find really similar areas using the National Forest Inventory FIA data and kind of matching that. So we say, OK, this forest, it was a similar stand age, had a similar commercial stocking and regeneration stocking. It was near accessible roads for harvest.

It was a similar forest type. All these different sorts of things to say this would make a really good match of what we think it would have looked like if that property hadn't enrolled in the program. And that way we can kind of observe things over time on that, both that constructed baseline and the project scenario.

And then we just compare those to get at the additionality. So that's a really big bucket that we spend a lot of time thinking about and talking about. Maybe I'll pause there.

[Greg Edge]

Yeah, that sounds like a huge amount of work to set up a whole separate monitoring on other lands, like how much of this control do you have to develop in terms of just volume of lands?

[Lynn Riley]

It's a great question. Yeah. So in the U.S., we're really lucky to have the U.S. Forest Service National Forest Inventory, and we actually utilize their plot network, which they have thousands of plots across the U.S. They collect a bunch of different data attributes and then publicly report those and regularly update the data. So I think across the country, they strive to have at least one plot for every six thousand acres of forested land. So it's quite a few plots and there's like typically hundreds to thousands of plots within any given region that we work within that we can match to.

[Greg Edge]

So you can tap into that data.

[Lynn Riley]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Brad Hutnik]

It is cool, though, that you're basically taking on that biggest, I don't know, challenge, right, is that it's not only you're it's not that you're just doing good manage, you're doing you're making sure that you're better than you. So I love that idea of additionality because that's really getting at one of the main gripes that people might have about markets and saying, well, you could just do what you're doing. And what's the difference?

[Lynn Riley]

Yeah, it's such a great point because it's there's lots of reasons why additionality matters. And one that I think you're sort of getting at, Brad, is it's important not just because the eventual buyer of a carbon credit cares about it, but it's also important because we as a program want to be able to learn what's working and what's not working in terms of the practices we're offering. And if we don't have a good baseline to measure ourselves against, we actually don't know if we've been making an impact or not in these forests.

And we certainly want to be we're a mission driven nonprofit. So additionality is important for that reason, too. The third reason I would say is it helps us be more cost effective.

It doesn't really make sense for us to be investing in assistance for a forest that maybe was already going to be managed in a really positive way that sort of didn't need that support to achieve that. Instead, it's great if we can sort of focus our effort and resources on the land that actually stands to benefit from it, whatever that looks like. And so actually having a measure of where we think something's likely to be additional or not helps us kind of direct our resources accordingly.

[Greg Edge]

Yeah, and I could imagine that just private landowners being such a diverse pool of different people and ways of managing that there's a lot of variation there. And so the ability for you then to tap into FIA data kind of helps you kind of balance that in terms of just being able to compare across lots of different forests at scale.

[Lynn Riley]

Absolutely. Yeah, we even on just our enrolled project areas, like Richard said, we have over a thousand landowners now, so we can't even like directly with plots monitor just our enrolled landowners. That wouldn't really be scalable.

So we're already what we do is we take a sample of our enrollees for every annual cohort of folks that we enroll, and we do plot based monitoring to get those strong inventories. And then we do our calculations and apply the accounting to that cohort based on that representative sample. So, yeah, as you're kind of alluding to, Greg, if we weren't able to do that, it would get pretty unmanageable pretty quickly with all this land.

[Brad Hutnik]

I'm curious, have you looked at or are you using any remote sensing as a part of this?

[Richard Campbell]

We do. Yeah, we use remote sensing currently to basically track performance and track landowner behavior within the contract to see if there are any disturbances in the forest that we can go and check and make sure that people are operating in line with the agreement that we have with them. We haven't yet been able to use remote sensing for generating carbon credits and actually doing those additionality tests, and that's a function of the rulebook we use, the methodology we use.

It does require us currently to use FIA data, but it is, I will say, an area of active work, and we're hoping to get a methodological change in the fullness of time. So we think it'll be able to be more cost effective, it'll allow the program to be open more broadly, and we think it'll give a much more accurate representation of the actual carbon dynamics on our properties and on the baseline itself.

[Brad Hutnik]

And I suppose you could be really nimble, too. If you saw something going on, you could maybe get right out there instead of finding out about it years later, which would be kind of cool, too. Season 7 of Silvicast is made possible thanks to sponsors like the Family Forest Carbon Program.

The Family Forest Carbon Program pays landowners to improve the health of their land and increase the long-term value of their property. The program equips landowners with resources and support to implement sustainable practices that help them reach their own goals for their woodlands, while also improving the health of their forests and our planet. To learn more about how you can access these benefits for our forests, visit familyforestcarbon.org.

[Greg Edge]

I think a lot of the foresters listening to this probably, I'm guessing, are really interested in maybe some of the more of the logistics of the markets and the program and kind of how this looks on the ground. And so kind of putting this all into action, Brad and I want to talk a little bit about some of those trade-offs between timber management and managing for carbon. How does the revenues compare between those two, or are they comparable?

[Richard Campbell]

The answer is that it depends. It depends mostly on the timeline that you're thinking about, right? If the landowner is interested in getting as much revenue as quickly as possible, the harvest will win, right?

There's more revenue to be made on the front end with a timber harvest, more potential revenue than with our carbon program. That said, when you think about the sort of financial picture on a much larger time scale, it becomes a little bit less clear. So when we think about the revenues that the FFCP can provide over a 20-year period, as well as sort of the increased value of the timber stand that will accrue during that 20-year period, over the very long term, the total value of the forest that has been a member of FFCP, as well as practicing sustainable forestry for the long term, can be quite a bit higher than a forest that is managed for very short-term financial gain.

[Greg Edge]

Are the revenues under the carbon program, are those fixed or are they variable? How does that work?

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah, so one of the things we do, we offer landowners fixed prices right now. And that's one of the things that is a bit different from what we do than other folks are doing. So the way we set our prices is we look at, we model out what we think the carbon gains are going to be for any one practice.

And we put that against our own organizational costs. And then again, against what we think we can get for selling carbon credits. That gives us an estimate of what the return might be for the landowner.

And then we guarantee that. And so what that does is that that price is in the upside for the carbon market. We think that the market is going to grow and we think carbon credits are going to be more expensive.

And we price that into the guarantee we make for landowners. And then we take the risk that it comes true, essentially. Yeah, the prices are guaranteed.

You will know better what the exact numbers are for each practice in each region. I don't have this on hand, I'm afraid.

[Brittany VanderWall]

Yeah, so for the Midwest right now, it's a one for one. You're eligible acreage amount multiplied by 210. And that informs your 20-year contract price, which is then split into 5% annual increments.

[Lynn Riley]

Yeah, and maybe one thing to add is we also provide forest management plans at enrollment and also at 10 years.

[Brittany VanderWall]

In the Midwest, our forest management plans last for 20 years. So we're different than the other geographies. Typically, management plan lengths, and not always, but enough, I would say more than half, tend to be 20 years or even longer in the Midwest across the three states.

[Lynn Riley]

It's kind of an effort to not just have it be a kind of one-time transaction, like, here's some money for the landowner. But we really want it to be kind of an ongoing partnership of like, we're here to help you steward your land, help you carry out this contract that you signed up for, and help you actually have a plan to achieve your goals for your land, which for a lot of landowners is probably something much above and beyond just carbon. You know, they want to keep their land in their family.

They care about the aesthetics. Maybe they're interested in hunting or preparing their woods for a future harvest. So yeah, we hope the forest management plans can certainly fit within the contract that landowners are signing for our program.

But within that kind of flexibility that we talked about also really help them achieve the other goals that they probably have.

[Brittany VanderWall]

The nature of a forest management plan is that it is a living document. And so there's a lot of opportunities to add or tweak, you know, if there's some kind of forest health issue or this sort of thing that needs to be addressed, there's a lot of opportunity to add to, subtract, change, edit, what have you. But plan lengths are a little longer in the Midwest generally compared to like our other regions where we offer this program.

[Brad Hutnik]

Now that you mention it with kind of those tweaks or those things that happen, you know, with climate change, we expect to see greater storm intensity, diversity of storms. We were just talking about ice in Michigan. So hopefully our Michigan listeners aren't buried in or, you know, in a block of ice right now someplace waiting to still get out.

But how would you guys deal with salvage? Is that something that kind of falls within it? Or I imagine that's got to be a little tricky from a carbon perspective too.

[Brittany VanderWall]

Salvage harvest would probably be a part of what we call a breach. More likely than not, a salvage would be a result of a windstorm, a blowdown, some kind of major event that took the timber down. And so we would actually have to clip those areas out of our contract.

So that's part of our breach investigation protocol where we as internal foresters or the external forces that we work with would go out and assess the extent of the damage and map it out. And then those areas would be geospatially clipped from the contract. And if there were plots, those would be dropped.

And those areas would then be taken out. And the landowner would be issued a contract for the remainder, discounting those acres. So of course, then the salvage harvest would be able to proceed as normally.

I know that can be really tricky depending on the severity, how long it's been down. Like I could speak in Michigan, that ice storm, the salvage harvesting was something else. But we do account for it.

I'll let Lynn speak on how we account for it. But as far as like an immediate short-term doing the salvage harvest, we don't include that if the timber was totally wiped in an event.

[Richard Campbell]

Great, thank you. That's really like specific to salvage, right? So there's, you know, not every disturbance requires a salvage harvest, right?

And if a stand is impacted by a disturbance, we'll go there and we'll work with the landowner to see what their goals are and what their options are for that stand, right? And if their options are still in line with membership and FSCP, we'll try to keep them in. But like Brittany mentioned, there might be the best thing to do might be to salvage and start over, right?

In that case, the program wouldn't be a good fit for them anymore. So we will wish them well.

[Lynn Riley]

Yeah, and I can maybe add just from how would that all kind of shake out on the carbon numbers side of things. So if that were to happen on those types of storms and disturbances were to happen on a property that we've already issued carbon credits from, what we'll do is typically, especially if the property was clipped out, like Brittany was mentioning, we'll use remote sensing data layers to sort of help us detect and quantify what actually was the carbon loss associated with taking that timber out or that salvage out. And we'll track that as what we call a loss event. So how much carbon was lost.

At the next time that we would go to kind of count up all our credits and get an issuance of credits that we would then sell to buyers, we'll kind of subtract out if it rises to a significant level, we'll subtract out any of those losses. If it's just a little bit like one or 2%, that's typically considered de minimis and we don't have to necessarily include that in our accounting. But any sort of significant loss events across the landscape where we're seeing, let's say like 5% or more loss, we'll definitely subtract that out so that those kind of previously issued credits are still technically whole in terms of the carbon benefit that they represent.

We have a few other layers of things that we do to sort of protect the durability of the credit. So making sure once we have a carbon credit that represents carbon stored that was additional in a forage somewhere, is it still being stayed stored somewhere? Or how do we deal with that?

So there's several other layers that we have in place for that durability.

[Greg Edge]

It's almost like you have to have this pool of landowners and have like a buffer that accommodates some of these losses that are just going to happen through disturbance.

[Lynn Riley]

That's exactly right, yeah. We actually do have a buffer that's managed by the kind of wider carbon program that we use or carbon standard. So the carbon standard, they manage lots of different carbon projects, not just ours.

And they're sort of the body who certifies and says like, hey, you all followed the rule book appropriately, counted up your carbon credits, right? And so here's your credits at the end that you can sell to a buyer. And so they have kind of a registry-wide buffer pool where we all sort of calculate what we think our risk of that reversal of stored carbon is over a certain time period.

And then we contribute a portion of our credits into that buffer for exactly this purpose in case there are disturbances. Or it could even be like Brittany was saying, someone breaches their contract. Or it could be maybe a neighbor comes over and like take some of your timber when they really shouldn't have done that.

Anything like that that would cause a carbon loss in these trees that we've credited carbon for, we would kind of be able to use that buffer for. In addition to that, our program kind of takes another layer as well where we also set aside money from each sale of credit into what we call a permanence fund. So what that's worth, it's a pool of money that we have invested in a long-term account to grow over time.

We've mentioned a couple of times so far that our program is only 20 years. But when we're talking about kind of greenhouse gases and climate change, keeping the carbon out of the atmosphere really matters for much longer time horizons than 20 years. And so our idea with this kind of investing of funds to grow over time is that even for landowners who may be there in the Family Forest Carbon Program, but after 20 years, they are no longer in the program.

They don't choose to re-enroll. We want to have a pot of money available for what we might call like alumni land to be able to access even after they're enrolled. So that's kind of a resource after the program.

If people need like continued technical assistance, it's there. If we detect more reversals than we anticipated, we can sort of compensate for them with maybe other credits over time. So it's kind of another layer.

We have the buffer pool of credits. Then we also have this kind of financial long-term insurance type mechanism that we can access. And that also is kind of a resource for alumni landowners as well to keep accessing for the long-term.

[Brad Hutnik]

That's really good. I think about this and I'm picturing. So if I'm one of our foresters listening, one of our listeners and they're interested, okay, so you got me interested.

What does enrollment look like? What do they have to do to kind of think about either as a landowner or as a forester kind of getting involved with Family Forest Carbon Program?

[Brittany VanderWall]

So either way, for a private forester who wants to get involved or a landowner, their first step would be to go to our website, familyforestcarbon.org. And those portals both exist. One where a consulting forester would send their information and we'd connect with them to get them started.

But also for the landowner, we have a mapping tool on our website where a landowner can select their parcels. And then that feeds into our database where we do an eligibility check. So throughout that process, the landowner will talk to one of our staff.

We have a lot of different staff that talk to landowners, our call center, account managers, and also foresters. So one of those staff members will speak with a landowner and we'll look at their documents if they have any, right? Maybe they have a pre-existing forest management plan.

We'll take a look at that. Maybe they're in current use like MFL in Wisconsin. A lot of MFL landowners come to our door and we have a specific integration process for that program.

And we have CPWs that work with us that do those integrations. So looking for things like that, looking for conservation easements if those exist, because some easements, if they disallow commercial timber harvesting, we can't proceed with those landowners because there's no additionality claim. So we have to look for those kinds of things as well.

Right-of-ways, gas lines, you know, we'll do an extensive vetting process of any documentation as it relates to the land. And of course, check their timber type, their stocking, and do that process of eligibility check. And then once the landowner has gone through all of that and we have an established project and size and rate that we're going to present them, that's called their offer package.

And then they will review that and decide if they want to move to contract. From there, of course, they get a contract that's specific to their project and they can review it and sign. And it can be a pretty quick process.

If a landowner is really motivated, it can go pretty quickly. You know, I would say, I think our average across our whole geography, I want to say it's like 80 days from website to signed contract, but that can vary quite a bit depending on the landowner. And like, you know, complex ownerships, right?

Like hunt clubs, or if there's a lot of different owners that need to weigh in or take a look at this, those kinds of things can slow it down. But it's a pretty easy process for both. Just website, having a quick discussion, reviewing their information via offer package, and then deciding if they'd like to proceed.

[Lynn Riley]

We usually see a lot of contracts signed like right after Thanksgiving, right after, you know, the whole family has been together and can kind of discuss how do we all feel about enrolling? And what do we all think about this? So yeah, moments like that, we usually see lots of signing.

[Brad Hutnik]

That's really cool. We haven't, we've only scratched the surface of all the information that we have available for the things you guys are working with. Are there places that you would recommend?

So if we want to learn more about Family Forest Carbon Program, where should we go?

[Richard Campbell]

You should go back to our website, familyforestcarbon.org. So we have materials for as well as the interactive map that Brittany mentioned, the forest resources. We do have materials for landowners that explain the program.

And also on our website, forestfoundation.org, we have a blog that often explains different topics, both specific to the Family Forest Carbon Program, as well as to some of the scientific issues that we've been talking about.

[Lynn Riley]

Yeah, there's also information there, even about like the broader carbon market. So one thing we didn't get into a lot today is kind of the buyer side of things. And like, who's buying carbon credits?

Why are they buying carbon credits? Why would someone like be paying money for this? What companies, what sort of policy mechanisms exist in the U.S. or even like internationally, that's motivating countries or companies to purchase credits. So there's a lot of stuff there too.

[Brad Hutnik]

Well, that's our reason to have you guys back in the future. We don't want to give it all the way. We want to make sure we have something left for the future.

[Lynn Riley]

Yeah.

[Greg Edge]

And this has been a really good conversation because I, well, Brad and I work in other areas. So I don't work on this in a daily fashion in any realm. So this really helped me kind of understand the basics behind how that goes about being employed.

And I know, Lynn, you sent us some of those other scientific papers, which we can put into our show notes as well. So it sounds like there's quite a bit of information, both on your website and some of the stuff we can post into the show notes. But yeah, I feel much more informed.

And so I really appreciate and thank you for this conversation today.

[Brad Hutnik]

I mentioned it earlier. I'm a fanboy because I think you guys were really almost like pioneers with that idea of additionality. And I think you fought back against some of those.

And Greg, we heard the arguments, you know, oh, we're doing the same thing we were always doing, but we're getting carbon credits, which then you're asking, well, why are you getting a carbon credit? If you're not changing anything, you know, how is this better than it would have been otherwise? So I think you guys kind of recognized that and took the bull by the horn.

So more power to you guys for that.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah, thanks. I mean, it's a real thing, right? It's a needed thing for the market.

It's a needed thing for the climate. One thing that just is really important to get out, and we're thinking about specifically around a lot of these conversations where the whole would have done it anyway argument comes up, comes up around very large landownerships, right? That have long range sustained yield plants, right?

That have professionalized armies of foresters and techs and lawyers. So they know what they're going to get up to. And that's not the people.

That's not generally who we work with. We work with people who own the land, sometimes by inheritance and sometimes by default, right? Where life events happen, and those life events are what drive forest management.

Those live events are largely unpredictable. So we really are trying to find that gap where the intention doesn't equal the action, right? And I'm trying to close that gap.

And that's really what the program is all about.

[Brittany VanderWall]

The other thing I'll add on that is I feel, and this is just really a feeling based on the landowners that I talked to and have observed. I don't have like a specific widget in front of me on this, but landowners will often come into our program with really no direction. It's either like the super informed current use already have a forest management plan and have been doing work, or this is totally new to them, and they don't have any experience whatsoever participating in forestry.

And this gives them like permission to participate in something that they might not have felt comfortable engaging with, I guess. Like maybe they viewed forestry as like a scary thing, or like they hear the word industrial management or forestry or cutting, and they think of like the Lorax, which is like a cartoon version of the most extreme example of what could possibly occur, right? So they come into our program, and then we talk them through what their land has and provide them technical assistance and forest management plan assistance and a connection maybe with a private sector forester or internal guidance, whatever that may be, the landowner is much more informed and able to participate writ large in the forest industry, whatever that may be, because they feel more comfortable and guided to proceed in any direction rather than just sit on the sidelines and do nothing and let their land sit because they maybe are overwhelmed at the options in front of them or don't know what they don't know, right? So we give them that stepping stone to understanding and be able to go in a direction with their land.

[Greg Edge]

That's a good point, Brittany. The carbon markets give certain landowners another avenue to access sustainable forestry that they may not have through other means. So, and here in Wisconsin, we're dealing with two thirds of the land and private ownership.

So we have to make inroads into those forests if we're gonna impact our forests. Again, thank you all very much. So really interesting conversation.

Keep up the good work.

[Richard Campbell]

Thanks guys, you too.

[Brittany VanderWall]

Thanks for having us.

[Greg Edge]

That was another really interesting conversation, Brad.

[Brad Hutnik]

You know, every time we talk about things that you think you know something about, I always get something out of these conversations. And there was a lot in there this time that I really enjoyed. And I think I learned a lot too.

[Greg Edge]

That's what our goal is to make Brad a smarter person.

[Brad Hutnik]

We be, yeah, it's a lofty goal, Greg. And don't set your targets too high. You know, just kind of like maybe aim for little things.

[Greg Edge]

Has anything gotten through yet? 

[Brad Hutnik]

Well, things do occasionally. But you know, actually, we drag everybody along in our conversation so we all learn something in the process.

And I think there are other alternatives to, or actually, now we're not competing with other podcasts, but I think there are lots of other places to get really good information in foresters' hands. And so I'll name just a couple of them here.

Things that I listen to that I think you as a listener would really enjoy. One is called From the Forest, which is a podcast. It's actually a radio show put on by the Catskill Forestry Association.

And it's a podcast. So you basically listen to their stuff. And they talk with, they have a series of people that work with the Catskill Forestry Association that interview people just like we do about what's happening in the world of forestry or different topics.

And so they talk about climate change. And then they also just talk about like what's happening in the association, what they're working on. So you can check that out wherever you can get podcasts.

I really enjoy that one. I think it's really, really good. Another one that I really enjoy is called the Forest Business School Podcast or the FBS Podcast.

And that's kind of geared at maybe like our consultants and maybe some of our loggers who are listeners where they can really talk about ways to improve their business. But it's really from a forestry perspective or from a forest industry perspective. Lots of great stuff there.

They talk about books that are really useful, different ways to work through some of the issues that they may be having. 

[Greg Edge]

Is that put out by a university?

[Brad Hutnik]

That one is, that's a great question.

We can find out, but we'll have a link to it. I'm not sure, but it's basically just a couple. That's a really good question.

I'm not sure about that. The last one I wanted to mention is one that it's interesting and I think I pick up or I look for it. It's called the Natural Resources University.

That one is also put out by a university, just like we are through the UW Stevens Point. And that one works through a whole host of different topics in natural resources. They have a timber university, a wildlife university, kind of all different other shows kind of built into that.

But that one in particular, I think does a really nice job of some of that stuff. And there are tons more out there. This is just scratching the surface.

But I think if you're interested in podcasts, there are a wealth of them, but these would be a good place to start besides what we're doing. So anyways, thanks for listening to today's episode of Silvicast. If you have ideas for future episodes or a question for the Dropbox, Greg, have we had any questions in the Dropbox recently?

[Greg Edge]

Don't go there. 

[Brad Hutnik]

All right. All right.

So this is a challenge for all you out there. We have a Dropbox. We'd be not making money on this timber sale if we were looking for tickets in the Dropbox.

Let me put it that way. 

[Greg Edge]

No tickets. 

[Brad Hutnik]

There would be no tickets in this.

We'd be asking questions at this point. But if you have questions, you can reach us at UW Stevens Point's Wisconsin Forestry Center by emailing wfc at uwsp.edu. Feel free to include a sound file of your question or your comment, if you like. And, you know, I think that would make our month, Greg.

If we had an audio file from a listener with a question, wouldn't that be cool? It would be cool. 

[Greg Edge]

You're setting a high bar, Brad.

[Brad Hutnik]

Someday, Greg, it's going to happen. 

[Greg Edge]

A real audio file. 

[Brad Hutnik]

Yeah. So anyways, we learn best when we wrestle with questions. So please keep them coming.

[Greg Edge]

And take care, everyone. And as always, thanks to our team, Susan Barrett, our Editor-in-Chief, Joe Rogers, our IT Master, theme music by Paul Frater, and of course, UW Stevens Point's Wisconsin Forestry Center.