Dollars for Water and Water Quality Keep Forests as Forests

A key component of the Endowment’s Theory of Change is to provide new value streams to forest landowners. One way we approach this is through our Healthy Watersheds through Healthy Forests Initiative. A path that we are pursuing in this arena is developing "payments for ecosystem services," and more specifically, payments for watershed services.

In this scenario, forested landowners who maintain a healthy, working, sustainable forest that protects water quality and that helps moderate water flow, such as flood protection, would be paid for those services, preferably by downstream water users.

The Endowment is funding four pilot projects in the East to better develop this concept, with an eye toward making payments for watershed services a commonplace activity. If successful this approach could potentially:

• help conserve millions of acres of forested watersheds (an estimated 180 million American’s drink water that originates in a forested watershed);
• generate new sources of income for owners of forested watersheds, helping them maintain and better manage their properties); and
• reduce drinking water costs for the public (the cleaner the water coming into treatment facilities, the cheaper it is to treat it.)

One pilot project is underway right in the watershed where the Endowment’s headquarters is located. To tell you more about this program, we asked John Tynan, Deputy Director, Upstate Forever, and the Endowment’s grantee, to describe their efforts.

Peter Stangel, Senior Vice President, the Endowment

Saluda-Reedy River Watershed
In early 2011, the Endowment committed to match a $6,000 grant that Upstate Forever
(www.upstateforever) received through the Land Trust Alliance (LTA) to explore the feasibility of establishing a Clean Water Credit program in the Saluda-Reedy Watershed. 　The overall objective of our efforts was to assess if water and wastewater utilities in the watershed would compensate owners of forest and agricultural properties for conservation efforts or improved management practices because of the nutrient reductions that these activities provide.

The Saluda-Reedy is well positioned for this type of pilot project as it is at risk for forest cover loss, is facing increased regulation for nutrients, has been the focus of significant research and conservation implementation, and is an EPA priority watershed. 　Upstate Forever began by estimating the amount of phosphorus (the critical nutrient in the watershed) that may enter the watershed from each property. 　This will serve as a prioritization tool for the implementation phase of the project.

Finding Partners Support from the Endowment and LTA also allowed us to facilitate discussions with the core stakeholders in a Credit program. 　The largest wastewater discharger, one of the significant water utilities, and the state permitting agency, have all been supportive of the concept and committed to working through an iterative process to develop a functional system that will result in funding for conservation or improved land management and, in turn, reduced nutrient inputs to the watershed. 　

We are now researching existing nutrient trading program protocols throughout the country and plan to propose a project framework to the stakeholders in early 2012. 　We have also initiated a related project to identify possible pilot phase landowners. 　This related project is a 319 grant awarded from South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control that involves　outreach to and one-on-one work with local landowners to implement practices that will reduce nutrient runoff into Walnut Creek, a tributary to the Reedy River.

Small Grant Leverage Bigger Pots of Money The grant provides $370,000 in cash and is matched with $250,000 of private contributions (through cost-share or "payment for ecosystem service" funds). An integral and innovative component to the $620,000 project is the incorporation of payments for ecosystem services. 　Current cost-share models, such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) Program offered through the Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource Conservation Service, only provide funds to agricultural landowners for the initial cost to establish a Best Management Practice (BMP) on site.　

Traditional programs do not compensate landowners for lost revenue from the land placed into a BMP (for example, revenue might be lost because trees in a riparian buffer are not cu, to preserve their ability to hold soil and filter nutrients) despite the fact that the lands set aside continue to provide water quality benefits to the watershed.　 One component included in our 319 grant will allow us to provide yearly payments for ecosystem services to landowners to compensate for lost revenue as a result of BMP installation as well as for the ongoing ecosystem benefit that the BMP provides.　

It is Upstate Forever's hope that successful, on-the-ground improvements will result both from the 319 grant and the ongoing Clean Water Credit program funded by the Endowment and LTA, providing significant funds for improvement of the watershed and protection and improved management of workings forest and agricultural lands.

Written by: Peter Stangel and John Tynan
Approved by: Carlton Owen, the Endowment

The Convergence of National Security and Working Forests

How might working forests contribute to national security?  Providing "buffers" around military installations is one important opportunity that simultaneously supports the military’s training needs and that might also provide a much-needed revenue source to private forest landowners.
 

A Changing Landscape
When the military’s large training facilities were created decades ago, they were typically placed in rural areas with low population density, so that training operations would minimize the impact to local communities of the noise, fire, smoke, and other by-products of maneuvers.  Over time, however, urban sprawl has increasingly brought people closer to bases.  In some areas, housing developments extend literally to the edge of the fence.  At the same time, new technology and weaponry is requiring even more space for the military’s training activities.  This clash of needs has stimulated the Department of Defense to seek cost-effective ways to expand the area around their bases where training activities may safely be executed.

Private Forest Owners and the Military -- Cooperating for National Security
Given the prohibitively high cost of land acquisition, conservation easements and similar tools are becoming increasingly important to military planners.  Because of the still rural nature of land around many bases, using easements to prevent development in these "buffers" is cost-effective and also provides income to the land owners.  For many bases, particularly those in the South, this means working with corporate or family forest owners.  The Endowment is helping bring together both the Department of Defense and forest land owners to explore mutual benefits. 

The Endowment’s Partnership for Southern Forestland Conservation (ww.pfsfc.org),  a group of more than 30 landowners, agencies, and non-profits, is now working with the Southeast Regional Partnership for Planning and Sustainability (www.serppas.org), a group of federal and state agencies, including the military services, on this issue.  A Working Forest Task Force was created to study opportunities. This draft strategy is being reviewed and was presented to the SERPPAS leadership on November 9.

Watch this blog site for updates on the strategy and the Endowment’s plans to keep working forests an important part of the military’s base buffering strategy.

Submitted by:  Peter Stangel, Senior Vice President, the Endowment
Approved by:  Carlton Owen, President, the Endowment 

A New Tree Grows in Greenville

While we've been in our new "organizational home" since late May (with construction still going on), we had a formal dedication of the facility on October 28th in concert with our fall Board of Directors meeting.  Dozens of community leaders, partners, donors, and vendors, joined the Endowment's Board and staff for a reception and tours of the eclectic space. 

And, in keeping with the Endowment's "tree-centric" view of the world, instead of a ribbon cutting, we had a tree planting to commemorate the occasion.  Contrary to the song, "we took down a parking lot and put up a tree..."

As reported in our June 3, 2011 Blog, driven by need to find additional space for an expanded staff and hoping to take advantage of the deeply depressed commercial real estate market, the Endowment opted to buy a long-abandoned building and rehab (recycle/repurpose) it for our offices.  We met all of our goals plus some with the decision...

...We now have the space we need to conduct business;
...we were able to bring the project in with only a slight excess over budget but still at a cost that compares very favorably with rent; and,
...the facility which has hard floors and beautiful wood walls has had a noticeable positive impact on our staff members who suffer with allergies.

Here are just a few of the images from that wonderful evening.

Endowment Chairman Mack Hogans thanks Board and Community Leaders for Their Support while  President Owen looks on.  (That's not our building in the background)

Community Leaders Mark Taylor, President of SynTerra Corp (left) and Dr. Walt McPhail (right) Sign In for the Event

Endowment Staffer Florence Colby Leads a Tour for Vendor Partner Michele Perron

President Owen Explains Some of the Office Features

Board Members David Dodson (right) and Mil Duncan (center) Visit with Chairman of The Palmetto Bank, Leon Patterson (left)

Kevin and Becky Hatch (left) Read the Endowment's 2010 Annual Report While Touring

Minor Shaw of the Daniel-Mickel Foundation visits with John Warner of the SC Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities

If you get the chance to visit Greenville, it will be our pleasure to show you our home.  Ya'll come!



National Conservation Easement Database Goes Live!

When the Colorado legislature proposed in 2010 a cut in the tax benefits afforded to landowners looking to offer conservation easements on thier properties, local conservation organizations knew they needed to act fast.  To create an economic foundation for conservation easements, the organizations set out to quantify the financial benefits of the environmental services provided by such easements.  While accepted estimates existed for the economic benefit of various habitats spread across Colorado’s 1.4 million acres currently under conservation easements, the tricky question was how to quickly calculate the total benefit across the state.


A Tool to Support Sound PlanningEnter the National Conservation Easement Database.  With a quick search, economists with the Trust for Public Lands were able to quantify land areas and in turn calculate the total economic contribution of those lands through environmental services.  The total: $3.51 million in public benefits—clean air and water, habitat and wildlife protection, and open space representing a $6 to $1 return on investments made to conserve land, some of which came in the form of state tax credits.

NCED Uses Modern Technology to Advance Cause and Accountability
This result would not have been possible if not for the newly-released National Conservation Easement Database (NCED).  The database, conceived of and funded by the Endowment, represents collaboration between five national conservation organizations in an effort to create a central location for up-to-date data regarding our nation’s conservation easements.  While knowledge of easement size, location, and purpose was rarely available even at the state-level, NCED allows a user full access to a national database of conservation easement data, including spatial maps and GIS overlays.

The Value of Accurate Information
Accessibility of this information has implications spanning conservation, policy, and land management, and will lead agencies, land trusts, and other organizations to plan more strategically, identify opportunities for collaboration, advance public accountability, and raise the profile of what’s happening on-the-ground in the name of conservation.  Of NCED, Endowment President Carlton Owen says, “While we know where public lands are, without comparable information on those lands subject to conservation easements, conservation planners—whether they be from the public or private sectors—are operating without all of the pieces of the puzzle.  Such is like driving blind; it can be done, but it doesn’t offer much potential for getting to the desired location by the best route.”

Building the database involved the collection of physical attributes of individual easements—such as State, County, easement holder, easement purpose, size in acres, and year acquired—creating a multi-layered GIS dataset, searchable by categories.

Screen capture of easement data in Orange County, NC.

As of August 1, 2011, the database has compiled data on 80,756 individual conservation easements, representing nearly 18 millions acres of land.  NCED contributors estimate this to be approximately 60% of all easements in the country.  Easement holders and land trusts can easily add their own land data on the highly interactive website, http://nced.conservationregistry.org/.

Cameron Tommey
Endowment Special Projects Intern

ShadeFund Offers Options for Small Business

ShadeFund is an Internet-based program designed to connect green entrepreneurs with capital from individual and corporate donors.  The start-up investment came from the Endowment and the initiative is managed by The Conservation Fund.

Small Business is the Focus
ShadeFund was recently recognized in the U.S. Green Chamber of Commerce (USGC)'s August 31st e-newsletter as well as in a longer story on the USGC website.  The article, "Searching for Green Capital?,” focused on the importance of financial contributions from governmental and private sectors for small start-up and entrepreneurial companies, particularly green businesses.  Between 1993 and 2009, small businesses created 65 percent (or 9.8 million) of the 15 million net new jobs.  A recent report from The Brookings Institute recognized that “currently the U.S. green economy employs 2.7 million workers across a multitude of industries.”

USGC Puts Spotlight on ShadeFund
With the current state of the economy, grants created through the stimulus package have disappeared.  As a result, many businesses have approached the USGC for help in finding funding sources.  ShadeFund is seen as a beacon of light and hope that there is still money accessible to green entrepreneurs (foresters, farmers, eco-tourist businesses, food and medicine naturalists, and small-scale renewable energy producers).

 “The ShadeFund was designed to help green innovators get the funding they need to move their business forward when their personal resources run out, or when banks fail to support their small business ideas,”  -- Rick Larson, The Conservation Fund.

Loans of $5,000-$50,000
The ShadeFund lends $5,000 - $50,000 to green entrepreneurs across America so they can expand their business and create jobs.  “ShadeFund grew out of the need to invigorate the growing U.S. green economy,” said Larson.  “The future of American business will be green, but only if our entrepreneurs can get the “green” (capital) they need to grow.”

Be a ShadeFund Supporter!
If you’d like to be a ShadeFund supporter and help a green entrepreneur build the economy of the future, visit http://www.shadefund.org/ and make a donation.

Michelle McGee
Endowment 2011 Intern

Two Great Gifts: Wood and Woodworkers

A group of America's hardwood producers have voluntarily come together to develop a tagline designed to promote the tradition, warmth, and value of their products -- "American Hardwoods:  Treasured for Generations."  

America is truly a country built on wood.  The first European-Americans landed to find towering forests comprised on not just mighty oaks but tall pines as well.  What appeared to be an endless store of wood provided shelter, furnishings, heat, food, and more.

Hand-me-downs Everyone Wants
Like most Americans some of my family's most prized possessions are wooden boxes, trunks, and well-worn furniture handed down from generation-to-generation.  Wood and wood products are without peer as inanimate objects that provide fodder for the stories of life.

We at the Endowment were recently granted two new "gifts" of the forest.  We asked the Greenville Woodworkers Guild (www.greenvillewoodworkers.com) to come to our aid so that we could re-purpose some salvage items from our recently remodeled office and to make useful objects from surplus hardwood plywood panels left after panelling some of our walls.

The Results are Outstanding
We couldn't be more pleased with the results!  Among the first of five requested small projects was an attempt to turn a poorly-placed building support column into a useful tool.  The result is a small break table now surrounded by re-purposed fountain stools that once supported patrons at the Little Princess Restaurant's main dining counter (see related Blog of June 3, 2011).  The "gifts" to the Endowment aren't just the "new" heirlooms that adorn our home, but also, the blessings of having talented artisans share their skills.  

Use It or Lose It Applies to Forests Too

Some readers probably thought that the April edition of this Blog -- "Save a Forest: Print Your Emails" -- was an April Fools' joke.  Not so then nor now.

A recent book released by the USDA Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory points to the importance of sound and vibrant markets for wood if forests are to be conserved over the long-term.  The book, Sustainable Development in the Forest Products Industry, notes what appears to be a contradictory conclusion as does our April Blog.

Data Differs from Feelings
"The historical data we examined in this study support the hypothesis that an economically vibrant industrial forest products sector has been key to forest policies and forestry practices that support sustainable timber supply and demand," notes author Dr. Peter Ince.

Drawing from Ince's work, the Summer 2011 Issue of the Forest Products Laboratory's Newsline, notes that "If a forest is providing only low-value wood, such as fuelwood to heat homes or cook meals, there is less incentive for sustainable management.  Such lands are also likely to be converted into a more profitable venture, such as agriculture, grazing, or development."

America's Forests Amazingly Stable in Face of Use
Forests across the United States were once cleared with abandon to supply materials to build homes, railways, or provide places to grow crops.  Those changes drove real deforestation -- permanent conversion of forest to non-forest uses.  Yet, over the past century, even in the face of burgeoning population growth, the overall forest estate has remained remarkably stable.  That in a nation that still relies heavily on forest products.  One need only look at the tens of millions of homes built in recent decades and the mountains of paper-based publications (books, newspapers, etc.) to see that forest use continues while forestland remains. 

Lack of Use is a Bigger Threat than Too Many Uses
In a nation where fully one-third of our lands are covered by trees and more than 300 million citizens depend on them for traditional wood and paper products -- not to mention wildlife habitat and the source of drinking water for more than one-half the population -- it is the lack of markets for forests that should be of concern not the threat of over-harvest.

One need only look to Colorado, a state that has lost dozens of mills and now has millions of acres of dead and dying trees due to a devastating mountain pine beetle epidemic, to see one picture of what a future with limited harvesting and manufacturing infrastructure holds.  There the Forest Service and other landowners must spend hundreds to thousands of dollars per acre to "manage" forestlands that heretofore generated income rather than served as money pits.

Complex Issues Require Complex Solutions
No doubt one can identify a few places where the problem is too much market demand putting too much pressure on forest sustainability.  That said, the most common problem for the nation's forest landowners -- be they public or private -- isn't one of too many markets; it's just the opposite.

Results from Sustainable Development in the Forest Products Industry adds support to the Endowment's belief that our best hope of ensuring healthy working forests and the family-supporting jobs that they provide, is to find more and better ways to support a vibrant forest products sector.  In our view such a vision includes traditional sawmills and pulp and paper production as well as markets for wood-to-energy as well as high-tech chemicals and pharmaceuticals.