Landowners with trees may earn carbon credits

An East Texas landowner with 40 acres of loblolly pines may seem as far from a Chicago commodities trader as you can get, but the carbon credits on those acres may earn a sizable bonus check for many individuals in Jasper County.

To understand why the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation (IFBF) has an interest in Texas forestry, you need a short course in the Kyoto Protocols, which try to reduce global warming by limiting greenhouse gasses.

It turns out trees sequester (absorb and hold) carbon emissions.

"A new planting of loblolly pines in East Texas can sequester, on average, more than two tons of CO2 every year during the first 10 years of growth, and nearly seven tons per year during the next 10 years of growth," according to the carbon credit aggregation program.

The Kyoto Protocols require industrialized countries to reduce collective emissions by more than five percent compared to the year 1990, but they allow "carbon credits" to non-industrialized countries, or to activities (like growing trees) that reduce greenhouse gasses.

These credits are a commodity that can be traded like pork-bellies, wheat futures or metals. The U.S. agency doing the trading is the Chicago Climate Exchange, but nobody with acreage in trees needs to risk or invest anything to benefit from the program.

Large forestry companies like Temple-Inland have participated for years in a different carbon credit program, according to Nolan Alders, a member of the Carbon Group. Now the Iowa Farm Bureau has developed a program that allows many owners of small parcels to participate in an aggregation program.

Alders said for practical reasons, the owners need to have at least 40 acres that has been planted in trees since 1990. In other words, he needs some evidence that in 1989 or prior, the land was in pasture or crops.

What's it worth? 40 acres planted in pine since 1990 X 6.87 tons of carbon per year = $275 per year, for doing what you are already doing, growing trees. It can be filed retroactively for up to five years.

Alders says an association of aggregators do the filing and pay the landowner 80 percent, meaning the first check on 40 acres would still be around $1,100, and the program is ongoing through at least the year 2010. The value of carbon credits varies with the market, which has been steadily climbing since the program was founded.

Fourteen states are currently participating in the IFBF program, which has been in place since 2003 and reports the IFBF's program has "so far reduced carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by nearly 1,211,800 tons."

For more information on the Carbon Group aggregators, contact Nolan Alders, regional coordinator, 5437 East State Highway 7, Nacogdoches, TX, 75961, 936 564-1096 or email nolanba@ hughes.net.

More information is also available at www.iowafarmbureau.com/carbon.