I made it home safely from Cloquet, after we decided to adjourn the Forest Values/Carbon Markets conference a bit early, on account of the weather. Once I heard I-94W had been closed, I thought ‘Safety First’ was a good idea.
On the drive back to Grand Rapids, my colleague Matt Rezac and I listened to the radio report on the heavy snowfall expected in St. Paul through the night. MPR’s Tom Crann was describing a “singularity” that had taken place somewhere in southern Minnesota of the kind Lee Frelich talked about as an example of global climate change: a lightening -laced snowstorm that split a tree and smoke-stained a house. Luckily, no one was injured.
The only conference-related injury that I know about was reported by Bob Krepp. Bob, as Sec/Treasurer of the Great Lakes Forestry Alliance, had graciously agreed to fill in for Stefan Bergmann on the Respondent Panel at the aborted final Speak Up! session. As he left, Bob told me, “I’ve got a head ache. Literally. I came here thinking I knew more than I think I know now.”
Cheryl Miller, Project Coordinator for the MN Terrestrial Carbon Sequestration Initiative introduced herself to me as we were packing up. I’m so glad she did, because though I knew her by reputation, we had never met. Cheryl said she thought that what we all needed next was a 2-3 day regional conference for deep discussion of the whole set of issues around global climate change – policy, science, forest management, economics.
Potential regional partners might include the Midwest Governor’s Association or the GLFA. When I mentioned this idea to Mike Kilgore, he recalled a similar effort involving Canadian colleagues, some 7-8 years ago. The participants of the Seeing the Forest AND the Trees study tour met colleagues in Thunder Bay who might be interested.
A couple of people caught my ear to say they wished the discussion of the role of human activity in global warming had been more objective. They pointed out that the Society of American Foresters’ position statement on global warming omits any reference to human agency, and they didn’t think such a statement would pass muster with the membership.
While I thought Dean Current’s panel with Lee Frelich and Mark Seeley had entertained quite a thorough and thoughtful discussion of the question, these folks’ comments were a good reminder that differences of opinion persist. And as Jim Bowyer emphasized in his question to the panel, how one understands climate change has implications for what we focus on going ahead – reducing emissions or helping our own and other species adapt.
On the science front, my personal favorite new fun-fact-to-know-and-tell from the conference was Lee Frelich’s story about the abundant White Pine seedling “Class of 1992” that sprouted so prolifically in southern Minnesota that cold summer following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.
Mark Jacobs, Mike Kilgore and I shook our heads over the apparent forced choice the Manomet Center’s Minnesota North Woods Carbon Partnership case study presents forest managers contemplating participation in carbon off-set markets: manage either for carbon credits or fiber. How can that choice be squared with interest in increasing productivity (understood in quantitative and qualitative terms across a full range of benefits)?
Katie Fernholz told me she doesn’t think it’s productive to focus on whether or not we like cap-and-trade or off-set markets. “They’re coming,” she said. Rather, she thinks it makes more sense to focus on how to ensure these markets are structured and used in ways that maximize their effectiveness and benefits to our forests and forest-dependent communities. To that end, she felt good about giving this forestry audience a chance to hear from Minnesota Farmers Union President Doug Peterson and Bruce Miller about how our farming brothers and sisters are already participating in carbon markets.
I mused aloud about how the financial and housing markets’ collapse makes the complexity of carbon offset markets feel problematic. Dealing with “additionality” and “leakage” looked particularly daunting – and potentially politically toxic. Mustn’t there be a simpler, better way? Minnesota Environmental Partnership Executive Steve Morse who overheard, said he thought carbon taxes might be preferable. Or, as one conference attendee wrote on their Speak Up card, “How about emphasizing reducing consumption of our natural resources as an option to reduce carbon emissions?”
Celebrating the success of the new 2c Managed Forest Land tax program took center stage at lunch
Our team also will gather and post all of the power points and many photos and even video footage captured of the field tours, the kick-off banquet presentations, and conference evaluation reports. Maybe even Eli Sagor’s Twitter “tweets.” After our online reflection discussion we’ll complete a conference summary report to share.
Thanks to all of you who came to Cloquet to talk about climate change, and drove home in a snowstorm. Like Bob Krepp, my head hurts – but in a good way. Charting the best path ahead is a challenge worthy of what we can all do together.
March 2, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Bernadine:
Thanks for such a great summary of our discussion last Thursday!
There may actually have been more than one “casualty” of the day. I learned that Chuck Leavell wound up getting stuck on a runway in Minneapolis for six hours on Thursday in trying to return home. More of a north country adventure than we wanted him to have!
Regarding the Manomet carbon study, I am not so sure that forest managers are, in fact, faced with a carbon vs fiber dilemma. Under both the Manomet and CCX protocols carbon within harvested wood products can be counted. So, if thinning were done to provide fiber for papermaking, there would be a minimal (but not zero) contribution to stored carbon. In addition, the thinning process would reduce competition such that carbon would be sequestered more rapidly in the next-harvest trees – something that should count under additionality (if it can be shown that such practice would be other than business as usual).
If material from a thinning were to go into the manufacture of OSB, then there would also be a significant immediate claimable credit under harvested wood products.
One way to look at carbon credits in Minnesota is that such payments could assist in the goal of bringing a greater portion of our forests to later successionary and/or old growth conditions. I don’t think there is anything in this regard that has negative connotations for carbon-based management or vice-versa.
March 4, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Sorry I could not make the event. But I thought I’d write to suggest some good reading. The book is called “Hot Flat and Crowded, by Thomas Friedman.
If you haven’t read it already, it’s a comprehensive look at energy, natural resources, world economies, climate change and world population and how they interact. Quite inspirational in my opinion.
Leo
March 7, 2009 at 3:04 pm
I noticed Bernadine’s comment in the VF/VC blog relative to the conference…
“Mark Jacobs, Mike Kilgore and I shook our heads over the apparent forced choice …manage either for carbon credits or fiber”
I’d like to clarify that while I am disappointed with the reality that current carbon credit programs don’t give much reward for well-managed forests; my headshaking had as much to do with the somewhat angry, knee-jerk reaction of some of the group regarding this issue.
The Manomet North-woods Carbon Study is an exercise using local forestland to “test” the carbon credit system in a real world situation. The primary intent of this (yet-to-be-completed) study is to provide information on the current carbon credit system so that forestland managers can make better informed decisions on the potential pursuit of carbon credit payments. Based on the reaction of some in the group to the preliminary results you’d think that the carbon market was taking over the world and forest management was doomed!
As a public forest land manager involved in this project my question throughout this study has been… can Aitkin County forests provide benefits from the carbon credit market without adversely impacting the other benefits that our forests provide?
The report clearly indicates that the Aitkin County business-as-usual (BAU) scenario (historic harvest levels) stores a significant amount of carbon annually, which I view as a benefit provided by our forests. But you don’t get paid for what you’ve done lately… it’s what you do in the future (additionality). So, for our future “alternate” (ALT) execise we looked at the options to increase carbon storage and decided to simply implement a shift of more of our annual harvest acres to intermediate thinnings (primarily hardwoods and pine… some aspen); while keeping the annual harvest volume the same as the BAU. According to the model, the ALT exercise yielded a 14% carbon increase over BAU – a nice potential chunk of money but not enough to entice anyone to abandon managing for timber!
While I agree that some forest practices on the carbon list are more ecologically-based than forest productivity-based; the arguments that any change for carbon additionality will reduce forest productivity are tenuous. Intermediate thinning enhances forest health, quality, value, and productivity; and also yields wood fiber. Even extending rotations in a meaningful fashion need not reduce productivity. Increasing the rotation age of a short-lived species such as aspen would not likely lead to much (if any) additional carbon; but a reasonable rotation age increase in pine or oak could increase carbon storage, maintain productivity, and ultimately produce long-lived forest products that would store carbon for many more decades. A classic example was observed on the field tour with a 100-year old managed pine stand that has produced over 80 cords/acre (>45 cords/acre currently standing); versus the 100-year old unmanaged pine stand currently at 56 cords/acre. The unmanaged stand had more carbon in the current standing volume but if you considered the harvested volume (>35 cords/acre in 4 thinnings) from the managed stand perhaps being in long-lived forest products (lumber, OSB) the total carbon story could be quite different.
I hope to have a better answer to my question over the coming weeks as the study continues. But initially it appears that some things can be done to increase carbon without adversely impacting our local forest industry. In the meantime let’s not panic before we know the answers… we could be looking at a win-win scenario!