Carbon Markets Help Plant the Forest of Tomorrow

To those outside of forestry and timber production, forests can seem deceptively eternal and unchanging. Where annual crops stand out in stark, artificial patches against the landscape, even the most intensively managed forests can convey a strong impression of the “natural.” This impression of wilderness can hide the extreme care with which these forests are planned and maintained over the course of the typical rotation (the period between planting and a final harvest). Unlike other crops like corn or soybeans, which are harvested and replanted year after year, a single timber rotation takes 20 to 40+ years depending on the region and the tree species. Foresters must work with the consequences of choices made decades ago, often by a different forester with a different management plan. Afforestation and reforestation projects must be planned carefully to ensure that the trees that are planted today can grow into healthy mature forests 40 years from now. Carbon markets can give forest managers additional flexibility to plant forests that are resilient in the face of increasingly variable environmental conditions.

The Challenges of Planting Future Forests

Afforestation and reforestation projects face challenges that aren’t found in grassland conservation or improved forest management. The first is often determining where reforestation projects are suitable. Potential afforestation sites, by definition, lack forest cover. If the site is only capable of supporting small woody vegetation or prairie, what is supposed to be a 40-year project could end in the first couple of years. 

Once a suitable site has been identified, a project developer must explore which combination of species are best adapted to local environmental conditions. Most areas that support tree cover have a variety of forest communities that make up a complex mosaic that changes with soil moisture, sunlight, maximum and minimum temperatures, rainfall, and other more specific regional factors. Finally, when existing site conditions are well understood, the project developer must consider how environmental conditions are expected to change. 

How Carbon Markets Help Forests Adapt

There is a strong possibility that the climate that supported forest cover before the land was deforested no longer exist today. It is even less likely that these conditions will exist decades from now when the forest is mature and seeding into the understory and surrounding lands. Planting the wrong species of tree can be as devastating as planting trees in soils that can only support grasses. Instead of an immediate failure of the project, drought conditions or extreme weather events can destroy the forest after time and resources have been invested in continuous maintenance. Scientific estimates of future conditions help to determine which seed sources and species that are likely to thrive without the devastating trial and error that governs unmanaged forest systems.

Many of these choices are common to all reforestation projects, but a carbon project can give land managers more flexibility to adapt to a greater range of environmental conditions. The ideal species, from a timber perspective, usually consist of a handful of rapidly growing trees that are prized for their wood quality. These species are often best suited to a narrow range of conditions and a variety of environmental threats. As conditions change, highly productive sites may be forced to abandon their preferred timber species for less lucrative trees or even an alternative land use. 

Carbon projects allow forest managers to invest resources in areas and species mixtures that are not ideal for classical timber production but are still highly capable of producing productive, healthy forests. By supporting and rewarding increased biodiversity across the landscape, carbon projects help to make these forest systems more resilient in the face of a changing climate. The Climate Trust is working to restore forest cover to degraded lands while giving land managers the ability to plant a forest that will survive future environmental challenges.