FCCP organizes workshop to build voluntary forest carbon market decision support capacity in Rhinelander Wisconsin
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EmailFCCP organized a 1-day workshop in Rhinelander Wisconsin to increase landowner and forestry professional decision-making support to engage in voluntary carbon markets.
RHINELANDER, WI – Dr. Chad Papa, FCCP director, Dr. Raju Pokharel, MSU Department of Forestry, and Evan Beresford, FCCP Program Associate, organized a 1-day workshop that sought to increase landowner and forestry professional decision-making support to engage in voluntary forest carbon markets.
The workshop consisted of two parts, first, in-door presentations of locally relevant resources and second, a field visit to a local site enrolled in a voluntary forest carbon program. Dr. Papa and Dr. Pokharel started the day off by presenting the basics of forest carbon management and voluntary forest carbon markets. Participants had the opportunity to learn and access an online forest carbon calculator tool designed to help inform decision-making by conducting a cost-benefit analysis between managing for timber or carbon.
After the tool demonstration, participants learned from Keith Phelps and Scott Hershberger both of University of Wisconsin – Madison Division of Extension about new education and outreach resources on voluntary carbon markets available to landowners in Wisconsin. Participants also learned from Jordan Lutz and Brian Anderson from Forest Carbon Works (FCW) about opportunities for landowners to engage in carbon markets while still being able to manage for timber products.
The second half of the day was led by a team from The Conservation Fund (TFC) to visit the Pelican River Forest, a 70,000 acre parcel purchased by The Conservation Fund in 2021. The purchase allows for the development of permanent conservation strategies as a part of TCF’s Working Forests program that seeks to mitigate climate change, strengthen rural economies, and protect natural ecosystems through the permanent conservation of at-risk working forests while allowing access to recreation. Participants were given opportunities to visit permanent monitoring plots, view sites under active management and restoration, and ask questions to local experts related to the management of their forest lands.
This workshop is a part of the larger “Building forest carbon market decision support” project that is funded in part by a U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture Renewable Resources Extension Act Capacity Grant in collaboration with the USDA Forest Service, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Michigan State University Cooperative Extension and the Forest Owner Carbon and Climate Education (FOCCE) program at Penn State University.
Forest Carbon and Wisconsin Carbon Markets - UW-Madison Extension Forestry
