Emma Cotton - VTDigger - Jul 5 2021
Glebe Mountain, seated between 1,400 and 2,600 feet in elevation and surrounded by more forest, is an ideal place for wildlife to roam. It could become more important as the climate warms, sending cold-seeking animals like moose to the upper and northward reaches of Vermont’s landscape ... That’s why the Conservancy decided to purchase the 3,500-acre parcel ... The carbon market, which has existed for about a decade, allows companies, colleges and even countries to buy and sell credits with the ultimate goal of reducing carbon in the atmosphere. When an organization like the Nature Conservancy can prove that their work is reducing measurable amounts of atmospheric carbon... they are awarded credits through the American Carbon Registry, which become available for purchase.
Christine McGowan - Vermont Business Magazine - August 6, 2020
Consulting forester Charlie Hancock was instrumental in launching the Cold Hollow Carbon project in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. The pilot, which is now being viewed as a model for other parts of the country, is the first aggregated parcel to be purchased on the carbon marke ... forests collect and store different amounts of carbon at various stages of growth. While younger forests (30 to 70 years old) will have a high rate of carbon sequestration— i.e. the process of pulling carbon dioxide from the air through photosynthesis to support growth—a forest’s ability to store carbon increases with age, peaking at around 200 years. Estimates of the carbon stored in old-growth forests range from 100 to 120 metric tons of carbon per acre. Vermont’s forests, which were largely clear cut in the 1800s to create agricultural land, are relatively young, averaging around 100 years old, and store approximately 60-80 metric tons of carbon per acre.
John Dillon - VPR - Dec 11 2019
Conservancy says its innovative plan to use a Vermont forest to help reduce greenhouse gas pollution in California did not turn out as hoped after a timber inventory showed the project was not economically feasible. The Vermont chapter of the conservancy had hoped to enroll its 5,400-acre piece of northern Franklin County into a California market aimed at reducing greenhouse gas pollution ... “What we found was that there just wasn't enough carbon there above the regional average to make a financially viable project,” ... the conservancy now plans to enroll the land in a separate market in which companies or individuals voluntarily buy carbon offsets.
Links/Liens: Vermont Land Trust, Cold Hollow to Canada
Archive
John Dillon - VPR - July 12 2019
Jim Shallow, director of strategic conservation initiatives for the Vermont chapter, was describing the new forest project on Burnt Mountain. But he kept interrupting himself each time he heard a new bird song ... “This forest is going to be that place where birds and other wildlife will have core habitat that will be resistant or resilient to the disturbances that will come along, because it’s big enough,” he said ... And besides growing birds, this wild part of the northern Green Mountains grows trees. ... Companies in California will be able to meet up to 8 percent of their CO2 reduction goals by buying carbon stored elsewhere. This parcel will be the largest carbon storage project in the state and the first in Vermont eligible for that carbon market. It’s expected to earn the Nature Conservancy about $2 million dollars over the first 10 years.
John Dillon - VPR - June 26 2019
A chunk of northern Vermont forest will soon help reduce greenhouse gas pollution in California. The idea is that companies will pay to reduce their carbon footprint by buying the carbon sequestered in a forest on the other side of the country. But determining how much carbon is being stored, and then enrolling in that expanding carbon market, is far from simple. It involves a lot of time, money and long hours walking the woods ... The 5,400 acre parcel has been owned for years by the Vermont chapter of The Nature Conservancy ... conservancy staff thought through the options and talked to scientists, they figured the land could still generate some revenue by selling carbon instead of trees.
The Nature Conservancy - July 2019
The nearly 5,500-acre spans the five towns of Belvidere, Eden, Lowell, Montgomery, and Westfield, and is now the largest natural area in our 55-preserve network.
The Nature Conservancy - January 09, 2019
The Glebe parcel, spanning the towns of Londonderry and Windham, encompasses an array of geologic settings that will support a diverse richness of wildlife and plant species. The reality is that there are not many remaining opportunities in Vermont to protect large, forested blocks—making these projects only more urgent. The protection of Glebe does come at a cost, $4 million in the case of Glebe Mountain, yet the benefits are priceless.
