Carbon: Forest Restoration along the Blues Highway

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Carbon Forest Restoration along the Blues
Highway

• Yale SFES Faculty Seminar
• Sept 2007

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US 61 - The Blues Highway
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Forests in the Delta

• Badly depleted landscape element
• Wood supply
• Big push on Restoration waterfowl and birds
• Many actors in acquisition/restoration
• DU and others
• Feds, states
• 60,000 A. utility-funded C plantings

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Bottomland Hardwooods area LMV 1492 to Predicted
2020
Stanturf et al J For Aug 2000 p. 11.
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Yazoo NWR
Restoration Goal Add 4 million acres of forest
(!)
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Source Simla Tokgoz, et al. Staff rpt 07-SR
101, CARD Iowa State.
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Forestry Factoids

• Trees grow really fast
• So do the weeds
• Former farmland heavy sod
• Natural regen. oft disappointing
• Droughts are common
• grass has the upper hand
• wheat is grown here
• Many past planting regimes not satisfactory for
  new ideas, good growth/yield data not available

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Nursery, Rayville LA
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Sharkey Soil
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Cypress swamp near Rayville, LA
Delta National Forest
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Cottonwoods
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Oaks -- everywhere
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Issues

• Hydrologic Regime
• Landscape Philosophy
• Carbon pricing system
• Privatization of hunting opportunity
• Diversify rural economy
• Shrinking Ag
• Riverboat gambling
• Levee addiction bad land use

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Regimes

• Cottonwood Pulp
• Cottonwood Logs
• Cottonwood Clumps (!)
• Baldcypress restoration
• Oak WRP monocultures
• Mixed Oak and others (gum, cottonwood, etc)
• Is there a start point offering a path to a more
  natural forest?

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Reforestation Crisis

• Changes in WRP
• New acreage plummeting
• Threatens infrastructure
• Corn Boom no marginal land
• Large shifts from cropland base politically
  sensitive
• So is there a new Conservation business model?

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Mature, large natural stands 202 tons / A.
Winrock, 2003 p. 11 Based on FIA.
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Stacking Revenue Streams

• Timber income NPVs 0 to 400
• Carbon payments max (!!) 48-145/yr
• Hunt leases 10-15/yr
• Development rights sales not assessed
• Other federal programs CRP 50/yr
• (post WRP)
• N03 reduction payments 352/A (?)
• Channel Storage payments (???)
• Note these may not be independent

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Some Economics

• At 3.50-4.00 corn
• There is no more submarginal cropland
• Farm Land in Delta
• Value of cropland 1600/A
• Rental rate 69.50 and more
• Higher for irrigated lands
• Abutters may pay more to expand
• Much cotton land is leased (implications?)

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The Budget Ouch!

• Getting trees started on old cropland is
  expensive up to 250.00/A
• Hunt leases are going up! 10-15/A/yr
• Many want to buy, not lease them
• Capitalized into the land
• Costs Sobering
• To buy/plant 10,000 A. 18 MM

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Structuring Carbon Payments

• Utilities offering the
• Loose rules
• NGOs have developed a standard
• (can it work? .. Not sure yet)
• Irlands Conjecture
• Base Payment on sustainable volume of entire
  property
• Not on just one stand
• Pay on basis of C Rental each year
• Much more discussion of this is needed

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Other Cool Stuff

• Hydrologic restoration
• Limited by massive re-engineering of the
  Floodplain
• Green Tree reservoirs
• Winter flooding of crop fields
• A Virtual Reserve?
• TNC aggregates PES, acts like a private NRCS
• Rents rather than owns key lands
• Get used to noncontiguous reserves
• Significant management/skill input

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Conclusions

• Brother Gator will have the blues for a while
• Lots of interesting forest expansion
  opportunities small scale
• Some stacking looks feasible
• Very early on learning curve for this
• Current business model broken
• Look at new methods, virtual reserves