Caitlin Varian | US Nature4Climate

How Climate Action Can Reboot Economies in Rural America

*_{Photo Credit: Mark Alexander/iStock}*

Many rural counties in the United States face the dual challenges of lagging economic growth and increasingly severe effects of climate change. While urban areas are not uniformly prosperous and rural areas are not uniformly poor, rural communities on average lag behind their urban counterparts on most key economic indicators — from poverty rates to labor force participation. Rural areas represent 86% of persistent poverty counties in the U.S., while over 50% of rural Black residents live in economically distressed counties.

These challenges have been intensified by economic losses from the COVID-19 pandemic, which has exacerbated existing inequalities and highlighted urgent infrastructure needs. At the same time, catastrophic wildfires, record heatwaves, drought and other severe weather events linked to climate change threaten rural communities and livelihoods.

Addressing both the climate crisis and lagging economic vitality will require federal investment in building a new climate economy for rural America — one that reduces greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero while creating jobs, uplifting economically disadvantaged communities, and enhancing ecosystem services. This opportunity is already being realized in targeted regions (clean energy is a growing economic engine for many rural communities) and federal policymakers now have the opportunity to dramatically expand on this progress.

New WRI analysis finds that an annual federal investment of nearly $15 billion in key areas of the rural new climate economy would create hundreds of thousands of jobs in rural communities, add billions of dollars of value to rural economies, and generate millions in new tax revenues. This investment would help combat the economic stagnation confronting many rural areas and ensure that the benefits of the transition to a net-zero economy are widely distributed.

Understanding Rural Economic Opportunity by Area and Geography

In this new paper, we analyzed the impact of $55 billion per year in federal investment in seven areas of the new climate economy over at least five years. These include investments in renewable energy; energy efficiency; transmission, distribution, and storage (TDS); environmental remediation of abandoned fossil fuel infrastructure; tree restoration on federal and non-federal lands; and wildfire risk management. An estimated $14.9 billion of that investment (27%) would be directed to rural America.

That investment would support nearly 260,000 direct, indirect and induced jobs for at least five years in rural counties (a total of 1.3 million job-years) and 740,000 jobs for five years in the country as a whole (a total of 3.7 million job-years). This equates to 17.5 jobs per $1 million invested in rural counties.

The results also indicate that new climate economy federal investment in rural areas would offer an attractive return on investment by adding $21.7 billion per year to rural economies for the first five years — $1.46 for every dollar invested. This includes $12.9 billion in employee compensation and $1.6 billion in federal, state and local tax revenues. The figure below shows the distribution of economic benefits across the seven investment areas.

Rural Economic Impacts by Investment Area (each year for first five years)

* Results in the table are for rural counties only. For the purposes of this analysis, we use Rural-Urban Continuum Codes developed by the USDA Economic Research Service to delineate rural areas. This geographic-economic classification scheme distinguishes between two broad types of regions: metropolitan counties (codes 1-3) and non-metropolitan counties (codes 4-9). This analysis considers all non-metropolitan counties to be rural. Source: The Economic Benefits of New Climate Economy in Rural America, 2021

Job creation benefits would be widely dispersed across the country’s rural areas and vary by sector depending on regional economic factors. The top five states seeing the most significant impacts in terms of job creation relative to the size of local rural economies would be California, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Wyoming and Nevada.

California, New Mexico and Nevada would benefit most substantially from wildfire risk management investment. Massachusetts and Nevada, by contrast, would benefit largely from investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and grid transmission and distribution.

The analysis shows the geographic distribution of rural job creation potential (measured as jobs created in a rural county per 1,000 private sector workers, aggregated at the state level) from federal investment in each of the seven areas analyzed. Different investment areas naturally impact regions differently depending on local economic factors and where opportunities are located.

For instance, Massachusetts, California, Nevada, Maryland and Illinois would see the most job creation benefits from federal investments in renewable energy, while rural counties in Pennsylvania, Kansas, West Virginia, Kentucky and Wyoming would benefit most from investments in environmental remediation of orphaned oil and gas wells and abandoned coal mines. The latter is particularly important given that these are the same regions that have seen significant job losses due to the phasing out of coal generation. Investment in these regions can therefore help ensure a more just economic transition.

Rural counties in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and New Mexico are expected to see the highest levels of job creation from investment in tree restoration on federal lands, while those in Missouri, Ohio, South Dakota, Michigan and Wisconsin would benefit most from investment in tree restoration, including agroforestry, on state, local and private lands.

Direct and Indirect Benefits of Rural Investment in the New Climate Economy

Federal investments in the rural new climate economy would also provide benefits beyond job creation. Wind energy can help farmers and landowners earn money, providing additional income support and enhancing financial stability during lean times. Energy efficiency projects can help reduce energy bills for rural households by as much as 25%, representing more than $400 in annual household savings.

Investments in wildfire risk mitigation can help reduce the danger that catastrophic wildfires pose to rural communities and forests — an important point given that western wildfires are becoming more frequent and more destructive. In 2018 alone, wildfires in California cost the U.S. economy 0.7% of the nation’s annual GDP, highlighting the need to invest in measures that can help mitigate fire risks.

Local tax payments generated from these projects also provide much-needed revenue to rural communities for investing in new and improved infrastructure including roads, bridges and schools. In some cases, when a renewable energy project comes to a rural area, it is the largest single taxpayer in the county and accounts for a large share of the county’s budget.

Potential Impact on Economically Disadvantaged Rural Communities

To enable a new climate economy that supports economic wellbeing in all communities, federal investment in the seven areas described above must support the nation’s most economically disadvantaged rural communities.

The new climate economy opportunities described previously could create more than 118,000 jobs for at least five years (a total of 590,000 job-years) in these counties, resulting in over $9.8 billion added to these rural economies annually, including $5.9 billion in employee compensation and $685 million in total taxes.

Economically disadvantaged rural counties in California, Texas, New Mexico, Missouri and Kentucky stand to benefit the most in terms of total jobs supported by federal investment in the seven focus areas of this analysis.

Federal Investment in the New Climate Economy Could Significantly Benefit Economically Disadvantaged Rural Counties

While this job creation is significant, representing approximately 45% of job creation potential from investment in the seven areas of the new climate economy, more needs to be done to ensure economic benefits reach the areas where they are most needed.

Actions on this front could include: workforce training programs in the energy and land sectors with employment guarantees; measures to make clean energy affordable for low-income households; grant programs to support local businesses and nonprofit organizations; and requirements that new program designs be collaborative, inclusive and accessible to all workers.

Federal Policies Can Support a Rural New Climate Economy

The federal government has an opportunity to enact and expand policies that will drive investments in the new climate economy, creating jobs and bolstering rural economies in the process. Fully activating the opportunities analyzed in each of the seven areas would require a suite of federal policies, which could support a larger federal plan for rebuilding infrastructure and mitigating climate change.

The current push by Congress and the Biden administration to invest in the country’s ailing infrastructure and tackle the climate crisis represents the most promising political moment in years to support a new climate economy in rural America.

The proposed American Jobs Plan, representing the administration’s basis for negotiations with Congress on infrastructure, would provide historic levels of federal funding for places that have faced declining economic opportunities.

Several policy provisions of the American Jobs Plan — including investments in transmission lines, rural electric cooperatives to advance low-cost clean energy in rural communities, plugging orphan wells and cleaning up abandoned coal mines, and forest restoration — have the potential to create jobs and spur broad-based economic growth

The investments considered in our analysis, however, will likely not be sufficient on their own to recruit and train the workforce necessary to implement new climate economy pathways.

The policies recommended here will also need to include mechanisms to ensure that jobs created provide minimal barriers to entry, are well-paid, offer opportunities for stable employment and benefits, and support unionization. These components will help ensure that the new climate economy will not just create jobs, but sustain worker and community well-being and create equitable opportunities for all.

Federal policy opportunities by investment area

Renewable energy	Extend investment tax credits and production tax credits for renewable energy Reauthorize tax incentives for clean energy manufacturing facilities through section 48C of the tax code Expand grant and loan programs that help rural communities finance renewable energy, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Energy for America Program (REAP)
Energy efficiency	Extend tax incentives for efficiency upgrades in homes and residential buildings, including the existing homes tax credit (tax code sec. 25C) and new homes tax credit (sec. 45L) Extend tax incentives for efficiency upgrades in new and existing commercial buildings (sec. 179D) Boost funding level for block grant programs that channel money directly to state and local agencies for efficiency upgrades, including the Weatherization Assistance Program, State Energy Program, and Energy Efficiency Conservation Block Grants program, and create a comparable program for industrial facilities Expand grant and loan programs targeted at rural communities, including the USDA REAP program, Energy Efficiency Conservation Loan Program, and Rural Energy Savings Program
Transmission, distribution, and storage	Create tax credits to incentivize the build out of transmission projects that are regionally significant and can enable renewable energy integration on the grid and stand-alone energy storage technologies Reauthorize tax credits to incentivize domestic clean energy manufacturing facilities (sec. 48C) Reauthorize the Department of Energy’s Smart Grid Investment Grant program to promote investments in smart grid technologies Authorize the Department of Transportation to make transmission infrastructure projects, especially those that emphasize the integration of renewable energy, eligible under the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loan guarantee program Expand loans and loan guarantees through USDA Electric Infrastructure Loan & Loan Guarantee to help finance transmission and distribution systems in rural areas Create a program to provide grants and technical assistance to rural electric cooperatives to deploy energy storage and microgrid technologies
Environmental remediation of abandoned fossil fuel infrastructure	Increase federal funding to clean up abandoned coal mine sites Create a new program for plugging and remediation at orphaned oil and gas well sites
Tree restoration on federal lands	Remove the funding cap on the Reforestation Trust Fund Increase appropriations for programs that fund restoration projects on federal land
Tree restoration on non-federal lands	Implement a refundable or transferable tax credit for natural carbon sequestration Enhance USDA conservation programs to incentivize natural carbon sequestration and reduce transaction costs for landowners, especially underserved landowners Provide additional funding through state and local grants and the State and Private Forestry programs of the U.S. Forest Service (USFS)

_{Source: The Economic Benefits of New Climate Economy in Rural America, 2021}

Rural America’s Crucial Role in U.S. Climate Change Policies

Rural America will be indispensable in enabling the country to reach net-zero emissions: rural farmers, ranchers, and forest owners manage large segments of lands that hold enormous opportunities for climate mitigation. Rural areas are also crucial for clean energy development: 99% of all onshore wind capacity in the country is located in rural areas, as is the majority of utility-scale solar capacity.

U.S. climate policy, informed by the unique needs and context of rural America, can not only harness the power of rural communities to address climate change but also generate significant economic opportunities for these communities. This approach will be essential to helping the nation meet ambitious decarbonization goals while creating millions of good jobs across the country.

This article was originally published by the World Resources Institute.

In the Wake of IPCC Report, U.S. Nature4Climate Supports Bold Climate Action to Address Climate Change

On August 9^th, 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its 6^th report on climate change, summarizing the most up-to-date science on the impacts of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. This report serves as a dire warning to humanity should we fail to take immediate action to reduce these emissions. We are already experiencing the consequences of climate change, with record heat, wildfires, historic drought and flooding impacting nearly every part of the United States. As the IPCC report states, these climate-related disasters will only become more common as the planet continues to warm.

According to Katharine Hayhoe, Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy, “Scientists have predicted the likelihood of accelerating climate change for more than a century now – yet too often their warnings have been disregarded. My hope is that the rigor, transparency, and unprecedented urgency of this latest IPCC report will make it simply impossible to ignore.”

In order to avoid subjecting future generations to the catastrophic impacts of unabated climate change, we must pursue every mitigation strategy at our disposal. This necessarily begins with massive and sustained investment in renewable energy and carbon-free transportation. It is impossible to stop climate change without first taking action to reduce, and ultimately end, the release of immense quantities of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The U.S. Nature4Climate coalition supports efforts to decarbonize our energy and transportation sectors and eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels. We also believe that America’s natural and working lands can play an important role in helping to achieve our long-term climate goals. Natural Climate Solutions are a critical compliment to economy-wide action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – not a substitute for these efforts.

The science is clear – climate-smart management of America’s public lands, as well as privately owned farms, forests and ranches, can help remove millions of tons of carbon from the atmosphere. As Lucy Almond, the Chair of the Global Nature4Climate coalition states, “If we rapidly reduce emissions in line with the most ambitious IPCC pathways, natural carbon sinks and reduction of sources can do a lot to help take us the rest of the way to net zero.”

Over the past year, U.S. Nature4Climate has worked to highlight the many cross-cutting benefits of these climate-smart land management strategies. In addition to naturally removing carbon from the atmosphere, Natural Climate Solutions create jobs, enhance wildlife habitat and make our coastlines, forests, farms and cities more resilient to fire, flooding and drought. While these solutions are practical, relatively low cost, and available now, widescale adaptation will require both public and private investment in workforce development, training, technical assistance and mechanisms to incentivize action by private landowners.

My hope is that IPCC’s recent report spurs every jurisdiction, company, organization and individual to invest as much as possible in a just, equitable and comprehensive set of strategies for avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. Let’s get to work.

Catherine Macdonald is the North America Director of Natural Climate Solutions at The Nature Conservancy and the Chair of the USN4C Steering Committee.

The Interconnections Between Biodiversity and Climate

*_{Photo Credit: Laurie Andrews, Jackson Hole Land Trust.}*

Climate change intertwined with the alarming loss of biodiversity we are tracking today represent some of the gravest challenges we face as a society.

Land trusts — which often work at the intersection of people and nature — are no strangers to these challenges. They know that climate change exacerbates risks to biodiversity and natural systems. And they know these same ecosystems play a key role in both climate adaptation and the fluctuation of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Now there’s new scientific affirmations of those points.

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a collaborative report on biodiversity and climate change. This work represents a hopeful step toward recognizing that only by considering climate and biodiversity as parts of the same complex problem will we be able to maximize beneficial outcomes.

In short, the report warns that actions narrowly focused to fight climate change can harm nature and vice versa. But many measures exist that can make significant positive contributions in both areas. Among the most important actions identified in the report are:

stopping the loss and degradation of carbon- and species-rich ecosystems on land and in the ocean, especially forests, wetlands, peatlands, grasslands and savannahs, along with coastal ecosystems;
restoring carbon- and species-rich ecosystems, especially since restoration is among the cheapest and quickest nature-based climate mitigation measures to implement;
increasing sustainable agricultural and forestry practices to improve the land’s capacity to adapt to climate change, enhance biodiversity, increase carbon storage and reduce emissions; and
eliminating subsidies that support local and national activities harmful to biodiversity.

As a community, land conservationists have an opportunity and an obligation to highlight the interconnections between biodiversity and climate, along with their joint relationship with human activities and well-being. The importance of this work cannot be overstated.

If your organization is ready to use your voice to shine a light on this issue, check out the Land Trust Alliance’s new online climate communications guidance. This resource is designed to help your organization create and refine a climate change communication strategy that is right for you and your community. If you have and questions about it, please don’t hesitate to email me.

Kelly Watkinson is land and climate program manager at the Land Trust Alliance.

Originally published as a part of the Land Trust Alliance’s quarterly Re: Climate blog.

The Economic Lifeblood of Trees

*Photo Credit: Michael Mardon/American Forests.*

Suzanne Radford knows the power of forests to help heal the sick and stressed. Those incredible capabilities enabled her to turn a passion for nature into a career. She now guides and coaches people in ways to use the sights, sounds and smells of the woods to create a sense of calm — something referred to as “forest bathing.”

Radford is one of many people starting to realize that trees and, more broadly, forests are an engine for job creation. More than 106,000 people in the United States work directly with forests in jobs, such as conservation scientist, forest manager and logger, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But many more have jobs that are linked to forests in less obvious ways. From science teachers to whiskey barrel makers to artists, people in myriad professions need forests and trees. In cities, park planners design urban oases that revolve around trees and the benefits they provide people. Sculptors carve wood reclaimed from old buildings into beautiful items that can be sold. And what would wildlife photographers do without forests that provide habitat for countless animals and birds?

Forests aren’t just something pretty to look at or walk through. They are the economic lifeblood for an increasing number of people in the United States.

Forest Bathing Guide

Lying on the trunk of an oak tree, Radford listens to a soundscape of birdsong and insects humming. A growing body of research shows that time spent in nature helps boost people’s moods and reduces anxiety and stress. Companies hire her as a nature coach to help their employees manage stress through time spent outdoors.

Suzanne Radford is a certified forest bathing guide and forest therapy practitioner. She helps people connect to nature through excursions in the Serra de Monchique mountain range of the Iberian Peninsula in Southern Portugal. Years ago, Radford discovered a secret waterfall in a forest she frequently visits. Now she offers her clients a chance to sit beside water, watch its movement and flow and listen as it cascades over the rocks. She encourages forest bathers to imagine the role the waterfall plays in feeding the mountain and surrounding forest, and to let the water wash over their hands and feet.

Production Arborist

Benyah Andressohn was 6 when he started climbing trees. Little did he know he would find his calling up in those branches. In high school he wanted a job that would pose a daily challenge, change the environment and allow him to use his brain. Becoming an arborist made perfect sense.

*Photo Credit: Day’s Edge Productions / American Forests.*

Andressohn works for True Tree Service in Miami, where he is a production arborist, trained to safely ascend and descend trees in order to care for them. Our cities need many more like him. Urban forestry is expected to see a 10% increase in job openings for entry-level positions by 2028.

Park Planner

Once they have identified a site for a park, planners like Clement Lau create a vision for the space. Here is his rendering of a pocket park proposed for Walnut Park, a community in Los Angeles County with very few trees and parks compared to other communities. Once grown, the trees included here will help improve air quality and cool down the neighborhood on hot days. Credit: Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation.

Photo Credit: Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation.

As a park planner for the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation, Clement Lau analyzes data, such as demographics, existing parkland, trees and transportation, to determine which unincorporated areas need parks the most. In places like Los Angeles County, parks are considered key infrastructure for quality of life, and trees are a major component of park planning.

*Here, Lau enjoys an afternoon at Arcadia County Park, which he frequents with his family. Photo Credit: Susan Lau.*

Wood Sculptor

Canadian-based sculptor Patricia Aitkenhead’s carved animals make popular pendants and totems. But her business started with a classic debate: cats or dogs? As a way to settle the issue, she crafted a chess set comprised of a team of cats and a team of dogs. She chose breeds with traits she thought might fit their position on the board. Here, these pugs are the pawns.

Barrel Makers

Securing top and bottom barrel heads is one of the last touches in barrel production. Here, an employee at Kentucky Cooperage is placing the head hoop on a barrel.

*Photo Credit: Independent Stave Company.*

Oak barrels being charred at Kentucky Cooperage in Lebanon, Ky. The charred American oak barrel is a cornerstone of American whiskey, and white oaks specifically are used in the aging of bourbon. Barrel makers char spirit barrels to create flavor, color, aroma, a char layer that acts as a filter, and to break down the wood cell walls so the spirit can extract flavors from the oak.

Wildlife Photographer

Richard Cronberg has been photographing wildlife for 40 years and sells his photos commercially in art shows, fundraising events, retail stores and online. Perhaps best known for his bird photos, Cronberg here is capturing a group of Snow and Ross’s Geese taking flight at Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge in California.

Here, Cronberg has photographed a northern pygmy owl, which make their homes in dense forests near streams in Canada, the United States and Mexico. Songbirds are the northern pygmy owl’s favorite meal, so it can often be found near a group of agitated songbirds that gather to scold it. Photo Credit: Richard Cronberg.

The tree swallow, found throughout much of North America, makes its nests in the cavities of trees. But when it emerges, this beautiful acrobatic bird chases flying insects through fields and wetlands. Photo Credit: Richard Cronberg.

This article was originally written for American Forests Magazine.

The Outdoor Industry Aspires to Become Climate Positive by 2030

Climate positive is a summit that very few companies are yet pursuing. Blazing this new trail will not be easy. Yet, if we don’t carve a new, bold path for our industry and others to follow, we will ultimately fail to protect the outdoor experience upon which our businesses and many livelihoods around the globe depend. Our customers, consumers and employees are asking this of us… Now, united around this bold new goal and commitments, the outdoor industry through the Climate Action Corps – is poised to lead by example.

The world faces an urgent climate change problem caused by human activity, namely the burning of fossil fuels and the destruction of natural ecosystems. The Earth has already warmed by 1 degree since the 19th century, and to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we must limit warming to 1.5 degrees. Global climate experts agree: if we don’t curb emissions immediately, the results will be catastrophic for life on Earth. To avoid that, the world must cut emissions in half by 2030 and reach net-zero emissions by 2050 (that is, any remaining emissions are neutralized by the equivalent carbon removals).

The bottom line: Every government, business and individual must act. And we believe the outdoor industry must lead.

Climate change is already threatening the $778 billion outdoor industry and outdoor participation everywhere. Ski seasons dwindle and resorts struggle to operate profitably; warmer streams, drought and fire diminish hunting and fishing activity; and kids and families shutter indoors throughout the West as wildfire-polluted skies force cancelled camping trips and hiking excursions, or, much worse – devastate entire communities. Extreme weather-related events are also harming people and communities across the globe that often make our products, while these same events disrupt the supply chains we depend on. With so much at stake, the outdoor industry must be at the forefront of transformation and innovation toward a low-carbon economy. Outdoor Industry Association (OIA), as the North American industry’s trade association with a mission to ensure a thriving outdoor industry for generations to come, has a primary responsibility to support its members and the industry to rise to face this challenge.

The Outdoor Industry’s Opportunity To Lead

As individual companies, the choices we make – from renewable energy to power our operations, to low-carbon materials and production processes to make our products, to enabling the reuse of our gear – can have an impact. But as an industry, we can be a significant force in reversing the impacts of climate change. Our collective efforts can scale innovations, activate millions of consumers, drive policy and create a model for other sectors to follow. Our industry has a history of innovation, leading with our values, and stewarding the planet. We know that our employees and our customers are expecting us to be part of the climate solution. We also have a history of coming together to tackle hard problems.

Many outdoor companies are already taking meaningful climate action – measuring their carbon footprints, setting greenhouse gas reduction targets, and neutralizing the emissions they cannot yet reduce. But we recognize these actions by a few leaders among us is not enough. We can do better. We need to catalyze bold, widespread climate action across our industry and beyond by forging a new path. Rather than simply reducing harmful practices, we can bring forward regenerative ones. Instead of just doing “less bad,” we can create “more good” for society and the environment. We can set aggressive science-based reduction targets that we are not 100% certain how to achieve – acknowledging the “innovation gap” between what can be modeled, and what’s actually required. We can remove carbon from the atmosphere through solutions that also restore and conserve nature, increase outdoor recreation opportunities for all, and build climate-resilient communities. We can advance a just transition to the clean energy economy. In doing so, we go beyond simply decreasing our negative impact to creating positive impact.

For these reasons, OIA created the Climate Action Corps in early 2020, which has since grown to more 100 members representing more than $25 billion in annual sales revenue.

With input from our members, Board of Directors, Sustainability Advisory Council and external experts over the past year, we are excited to announce a new aspiration to become the first climate positive industry by 2030, creating a bold example for others around the world to follow. We chose an ambitious but achievable target because we are leaders in the mountains, in our R&D departments and in the marketplace, and we believe we can reach this summit by working together. To make this an achievable goal for our members, OIA is assembling resources to guide and support each step of the journey.

What Does “Climate Positive” Mean?

Global consensus is still emerging, and we have grounded our own definition of “climate positive” in work being done by climate experts and NGOs and will continue to evolve this working definition as consensus emerges.

Our working definition: Climate positive means to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions in line with a science-based target (SBT) that addresses all scopes, to remove even more GHG from the atmosphere than you emit, and to advocate for broader systemic change.

Climate scientists agree that even with aggressive reductions in emissions, carbon removal—the process of extracting carbon dioxide from the air and storing it—will be crucial to avoiding the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. We also believe climate positive brings an opportunity for our industry to promote equity and climate justice. We will continue to seek the input of experts and leaders in carbon accounting, climate science and the climate justice movement – as well as our own member companies – to ensure our approach is bold yet pragmatic, science-based, inclusive and equitable, and drives environmental, societal and business value.

With this bold goal in place and a community of 100+ outdoor companies engaged in the Corps, we are moving quickly to establish a credible, practical pathway, supporting resources, and interim milestones that will guide and accelerate progress and lead our industry to climate positive by 2030.

The Path To Climate Positive

Measure + Plan | Reduce + Remove | Advocate + Engage | Share

Climate Action Corps members commit to the following actions, with a new member requirement as of 2021 to set a science-based target that addresses all scopes within two years of joining:

Measure + Plan.

Build a company-specific action plan. Calculate your entire carbon footprint (accounting for scopes 1-3, as defined by the GHG Protocol). Base your measurements on more and more primary data over time. Set a science-based target (SBT) that addresses all scopes within two years of joining (new requirement).

Society has not yet committed sufficiently to reduce emissions, and science-based targets are the only way to ensure carbon reduction at the individual organization level happens at the pace and scale required to meet the global 1.5 degree warming limit. OIA will release new Guidebook content and training resources to help members tackle challenging “scope 3” measurement in particular, as well as resources to support science-based target setting in line with the Science Based Target Initiative criteria in 2021 (though members will not be required to set SBTi-approved targets, we encourage companies to seek this level of 3rd party validation).

Reduce + Remove.

Take immediate and ongoing action to drive down carbon emissions in line with your SBT. Compensate for remaining emissions by investing in projects with a quantifiable climate benefit (e.g., through direct investment or purchasing offsets) that ideally remove carbon from the atmosphere.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions in line with science is a critical part of any business’s climate strategy – no matter the size or structure. The market will demand our member brands have made meaningful reductions within five years. Because most of our industry’s GHG emissions are in the supply chain, implementing reductions has a long horizon. The Climate Action Corps puts forward these guiding principles for reduction: run cleaner, transport smarter, make better, and grow creatively, and provides resources as well as hosts collaborative projects (“CoLabs”) to drive reductions in accordance with these principles. Work will expand in 2021 to support all Climate Action Corps members to be on track to meet their SBTs by 2025. Changing the methods and materials for making our industry’s products will be challenging. Success will be far more likely working together to solve problems and leverage buying power. OIA is well-positioned to facilitate this kind of collaboration between our member companies, in partnership with on-the-ground organizations and experts.

But reductions alone cannot achieve net-zero or climate positive – and science is also clear that reductions alone will not be enough to limit warming to 1.5 degrees by mid-century. We also have to remove excess carbon from the atmosphere. Building on its long history of land and water conservation advocacy, the outdoor industry is in a unique position to galvanize investment in nature-based carbon removals or “sinks” – forests, farms, and grasslands – that may also provide recreational benefits for our consumers and economic benefits for landowners, farmers and their communities.

As businesses progress along reduction pathways, emissions that cannot be reduced will remain. We acknowledge these difficult-to-abate emissions have a negative impact on society, the environment, and outdoor businesses – in other words, they have a cost. Therefore, we believe they should: 1) Be priced into doing business – establishing an internal price on carbon creates an incentive for businesses to drive further reductions to decrease cost, and 2) Be compensated for by removing the equivalent amount of carbon from the atmosphere in the transition to climate positive – nature-based carbon sequestration measures are preferred because they also have the potential to create societal co-benefits that align with outdoor industry values, from creating shade in heat-stressed urban areas to restoring forest ecosystems.

Carbon offsets, or voluntary carbon credits, provide one means to accomplish removals, provided they meet standards for high quality (see Guidebook). Yet, we go into this clear-eyed on the realities and challenges: the carbon removals market is nascent and limited today. We have an opportunity to contribute to growth, rigor and innovation in this space. It’s also important to acknowledge that offsets alone are not an appropriate carbon management strategy and should be used in addition to a science-aligned reduction target and abatement strategy. In other words, a comprehensive climate strategy includes both reducing and removing carbon. Both are challenging, but necessary.

Advocate + Engage.

Advocate for critical, systemic policy change and engage your consumers and business partners. Recognize and reward climate-leading practices with your vendors and supply chain partners.

The systemic transformation required to meet the global targets outlined by the scientific community requires action by all countries, and all levels of government. Climate Action Corps members bring a unique and powerful business voice to the climate policy landscape. OIA and its partners provide advocacy opportunities annually (op-eds, fly-ins, testimony, signons letters, etc.) that advance our climate policy priorities, which include: incentivizing businesses that take bold climate action, accelerating an equitable transition to renewable energy, advancing natural climate solutions and supporting green infrastructure like more parks and paths to build low-carbon, climate-resilient communities.

In addition, our collective millions of employees and consumers have the power through their individual actions to have a remarkable cumulative impact as both citizen advocates and in reducing their own footprints. Trusted outdoor brands can inspire, empower and even enable consumers to take action – from driving to their favorite campsites or ski areas in electric vehicles, to converting their homes to renewable energy, to making their voices heard with policymakers – among other actions.

Last but not least, in addition to driving policy solutions and engaging our consumers, Climate Action Corps members commit to recognizing and rewarding climate-leading actions with their vendors. Retailers have a critical role as “choice editors” in assorting, promoting, and otherwise showing preference toward brands that are progressing in meaningful, measurable ways – bringing more relevant products and innovations to consumers who increasingly demand them.

Share Our Progress.

We use transparency to maintain credibility and drive accountability. Every Climate Action Corps member is required to submit an Annual Progress Report each April to be posted publicly on OIA’s web site, as well as used to aggregate data to demonstrate our collective impact through our annual “Path to Climate Positive” report.

OIA Sustainability Advisory Council Members
Matt Thurston, REI (Chair)
Libby Sommer, Bolt Threads
Guru Larson, Columbia Sportswear
Danielle Cresswell, Klean Kanteen
Theresa Conn, NEMO Equipment
John Stokes, New Balance
Kim Drenner, Patagonia
JJ Trout, PeopleForBikes
Kristen Bandurski, Red Wing Shoe Co.
Alicia Chin, Smarwool
Marie Mawe, W.L. Gore
Jennifer Silberman, YETI

OIA Sustainable Business Innovation Board Committee Members
Cam Brensinger, NEMO Equipment (Chair)
Jonathan Cedar, Biolite
Alison Hill, LifeStraw
Bruce Old, Patagonia
Sean Cady, VF Corp

This statement originally appeared on outdoorindustry.org.

Why Greenhouse Gas Inventories Are Important for Natural and Working Lands — and How to Fix Them

This piece was jointly authored by Alex Rudee with the World Resources Institute and Jenn Phillips with the U.S. Climate Alliance and was originally published by the World Resources Institute.

*_{Photo Credit: USDA NRCS Montana/Flickr}*

Inventories of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are a critical tool in the fight against climate change. GHG inventories allow entities like countries, states, cities and businesses to measure how much progress they are making toward meeting emissions-reduction targets, such as those set under the Paris Climate Agreement. Climate policies at all levels of government are also informed by data in GHG inventories.

The U.S. Climate Alliance has facilitated ambitious state-level action on climate change since 2017, when the United States government announced its intent to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. To support states’ technical needs in building and implementing these climate action plans — including by developing robust GHG inventories — the U.S. Climate Alliance has convened an “Impact Partnership” of nonprofit organizations with relevant expertise, including WRI. Through that partnership, WRI and the U.S. Climate Alliance have published a guide for states to develop and improve their GHG inventories with an eye toward one particular sector that has often been shortchanged: natural and working lands (NWL). But to understand why a state-level guide specific to land-based GHG inventories is needed, it’s important to first know what a GHG inventory is, why inventories are produced and how they are created.

Inventory Basics: What, Why and How

1. What is a GHG inventory?

An inventory accounts for all human-caused emissions and removals of GHGs associated with a specific entity. The inventory essentially acts as a climate change balance sheet, tracking the total volume of GHG emitted from sources like fossil fuel consumption and agricultural production alongside the volume of GHG removed by sequestration in plants and soils or through technological means. Good inventories transparently report their data sources and methodologies so the calculations and assumptions that underlie GHG estimates are clear. Typically, entities produce GHG inventories annually or on some other regular schedule to monitor changes in their GHG emissions and removals over time.

2. Why produce a GHG inventory?

As the saying goes, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” Measuring GHG emissions and removals through GHG inventories is therefore a necessary first step to manage our collective carbon footprint. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has required participating nations, including the United States, to produce and submit annual GHG inventories since 1997 to measure progress toward international climate goals. In more recent years, many U.S. states have voluntarily published their own GHG inventories to inform development of state climate action plans and provide accountability for their emissions reduction goals.

With the U.S. government and the U.S. Climate Alliance’s recent commitment to reduce collective net GHG emissions by 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030 and achieve overall net-zero GHG emissions no later than 2050, the accuracy and comprehensiveness of these inventories has never been more paramount. Achieving net-zero at both the federal and state levels will require concerted action — not only to reduce emissions throughout the economy, but also to increase carbon removals, including the management of natural and working lands.

NWL, which include forests, croplands, grasslands, wetlands and urban trees and soils, make up the only sector in the U.S. that removes more carbon from the atmosphere than it emits, reducing total U.S. emissions by nearly 800 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, or about 12% of U.S. gross emissions. This increase in land-based carbon storage, which overwhelmingly comes from forest growth, offsets the 10% of gross U.S. emissions from agricultural production. Emissions from agricultural production, which includes soil fertilization, manure management, enteric fermentation and other sources related to crop and livestock cultivation, are typically considered separately from NWL in GHG inventories.

With additional investment in conservation, restoration and land management, the amount of carbon removed by NWL in the U.S. can grow significantly, offsetting a greater portion of U.S. gross emissions and moving the U.S. closer to meeting its ambitious GHG reduction targets.

3. How are Natural and Working Lands included in GHG inventories?

Unlike GHG emissions from fossil fuel combustion, which are easily tracked through publicly reported energy use data, emissions and removals from NWL are more difficult to measure. These emissions and removals are occurring constantly over millions of acres due to farming and forestry operations alongside natural ecosystem carbon cycles, making universal monitoring very challenging. In many cases, scientists are also still refining our understanding of how land management practices like forest restoration or conservation tillage impact GHG flows in those environments. Therefore, GHG inventories typically rely on sample data to estimate the area of NWL within certain classifications and GHG models or approximate “emission factors” to estimate GHG emissions and removals as a function of area.

*_{GHG inventories typically rely on sample-based measurements to estimate carbon sequestration in forests. Photo by Lance Cheung for Forest Service, USDA/Flickr.}*

These challenges illustrate why estimates of land-based emissions and removals in GHG inventories are typically much more uncertain than energy emissions. Contributors to the uncertainty include:

Timeliness of data inputs (how long ago data were collected).
Spatial and temporal resolution of inventory data (how finely data can be mapped over space and time).
Gaps in inventory coverage (which sources of emissions and removals are omitted).
Error in GHG models and emission factors (how accurately the calculations mirror real-world emissions and removals).

These challenges are compounded at the state level, where most states lack the resources to develop their own inventories and have had to depend on federal data and tools with significant limitations. Many states, for example, use the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) State Inventory Tool (SIT), which applies the same methods and data sources used for EPA’s National GHG Inventory at the state level. However, much of the data on land-based emissions and removals used in the National Inventory is not available at the state level, so SIT has relied on older and less accurate data to fill gaps. SIT also does not publish measures of uncertainty. For these reasons, many states have opted to leave NWL out of their GHG inventories entirely, while others that do include SIT estimates for that sector have cautioned against relying on them for goal-setting or policymaking purposes.

How to Improve GHG Inventories for Natural and Working Lands

Fortunately, a mix of current and emerging datasets and technologies can help states improve their estimates of GHG emissions and removals from NWL. These inventory improvement options have the potential to not only address specific limitations of SIT, but could also provide even more accurate and granular information than the National Inventory. More accurate, more transparent and higher resolution estimates of NWL emissions and removals can help state governments set robust climate targets specifically for NWL in addition to measuring progress toward existing goals, informing new climate policies and underlying plans for climate-smart land management.

Most options for states to improve the NWL data in their inventories follow one or both of two strategies. Either the state can collect new field measurement data, for example by adding to the Forest Service’s network of forest inventory plots or by measuring carbon in soil samples; or the state can use remote sensing tools like LiDAR and satellite imagery to complement existing data from field measurements.

All inventory improvements come with costs, so states will need to prioritize improvements based on their potential impact, policy relevance and feasibility. WRI’s Guide to NWL Inventory Improvements walks states through available options for improving inventory data for each land use type included in a NWL inventory along with factors to consider in deciding where to prioritize limited state resources.

Several U.S. states have already begun to implement innovations in their NWL inventories. In March 2021, Maryland committed to replace forest data from SIT with a new inventory method that uses high-resolution LiDAR and satellite imagery to model forest carbon over time, based on research conducted by the University of Maryland and WRI under a grant from the U.S. Climate Alliance. Across the country, California, Oregon and Washington have all worked with the Forest Service to develop state-specific estimates of carbon in wood products, allowing them to update the decades-old data in SIT. Even farther west, Hawai’i partnered with the U.S. Geological Survey to create its first NWL inventory, as most of the federal datasets that underlie SIT did not include data for Hawai’i.

These are just a few of the exciting innovations states are pursuing to improve their inventories. But many other states lack the resources or capacity to take on their own improvement projects and the need for more national coordination and consistent, quality GHG estimation tools and NWL datasets that can be utilized by every state remains. Therefore, it’s clear that federal investment is paramount. Recent federal efforts, like the publication of new Forest Service research in 2020 that quantified forest carbon emissions and removals at the state level, help move the ball forward — but there is still much room for improvement.

3 Ways the Federal Government Can Help Improve State Inventories

The Guide to NWL Inventory Improvements identified three key needs across states, spanning the key NWL systems of forests, agricultural soils and wetlands, where the federal government would be best positioned to lead inventory improvements. With President Biden restoring the United States to a leadership role on climate action hours after becoming president, these opportunities offer common sense steps to advance the role of NWL in climate action plans at all levels of government.

1. Develop a national remote sensing-based forest and land use inventory.

The National GHG Inventory and SIT rely on data from the Forest Service’s Forest Inventory & Analysis program (FIA), which is among the most comprehensive forest monitoring systems in the world, but was not designed to meet current demands for precise carbon data at a variety of scales. Using federal data products like Landsat and GEDI, the federal government could complement FIA with remote sensing data to map and model carbon emissions and removals across the landscape, reducing uncertainty in forest carbon estimates.

2. Monitor soil carbon through national field networks.

Carbon sequestration in agricultural soils is currently modeled, not measured, to calculate GHG estimates in the National Inventory and SIT, leading to uncertainty of over 1,000% nationally for some soil carbon removal estimates. Regular, systematic collection of soil carbon field measurements through the federal National Resources Inventory (NRI) could help refine models and reduce this uncertainty dramatically. The National Academies of Sciences has estimated the cost of this endeavor at just $5 million per year.

3. Develop a national spatial inventory of GHG emissions in wetlands.

Wetlands are among the least-understood contributors to GHG emissions from NWL. No consistent data on wetland GHG emissions exist at the state level, and even the National Inventory does not account for GHG emissions from most terrestrial, or freshwater, wetlands. The federal government could improve this understanding by creating a high-resolution spatial dataset to monitor changes in wetland extent, vegetation and management, incorporating existing data from the Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP) and National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) where relevant, and pairing it with a network of field plots to derive regionally-specific emission factors for different wetland types.

Helping States Lead the Way on GHG Inventories for Natural and Working Lands

For the last four years, states have been forging ahead with climate action even as the federal government rolled back environmental regulations and withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement. States in the U.S. Climate Alliance have led the way in linking land management to climate change mitigation through the NWL Challenge, but they need better data and inventory methods in order to act boldly and effectively. Some states have jumped out ahead by experimenting with new methods for carbon monitoring in NWL, but federal action has the unique ability to “lift all boats” when it comes to data quality and consistency. As it now re-engages on climate change at home and abroad, the federal government has an opportunity to put wind under the wings of state leadership by investing in the tools they need to monitor and manage land for a climate-friendly future.

Alex Rudee is a Manager for U.S. Natural Climate Solutions at World Resources Institute. Jenn Phillips is a Senior Policy Advisor for Natural and Working Lands and Resilience at U.S. Climate Alliance. Both Alex and Jenn serve on the U.S. Nature4Climate steering committee.

Landowners key to restoring the native forests of the Lower Rio Grande Valley

This story was originally written for American Forests magazine.

*_{Betty Perez runs a ranch in La Joya, Texas, that has been in her family for generations. She is helping restore wild areas of the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Credit: James Foguth / American Forests.}*

In Texas’s Lower Rio Grande Valley, Betty Perez leans over a tender catclaw acacia in the nursery on her family’s cattle ranch. She’s pleased with the progress of the native plant that she’s growing to help restore her generational family land. The ranch’s future is increasingly threatened by the shifts in temperature and rainfall brought on by climate change.

“It doesn’t bring a lot of money, but it brings a lot of gratification,” she says, referring to her revegetation work. She learned how to grow and plant these native species during her time with Friends of the Wildlife Corridor, a nonprofit group dedicated to protecting and restoring the Santa Ana and Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuges. She was previously the organization’s president and now serves as a board member.

Perez studied botany at the University of Texas before returning to reclaim this piece of family heritage and “to get to know the land,” as she puts it. She sells her native plants, such as yucca, catclaw acacia and wolfberry, to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), which uses them to restore swaths of farmland back to this dynamic, but threatened, native habitat.

Less than 10% of the Rio Grande Valley’s native forest ecosystem, Tamaulipan thornforest, remains. Many of Perez’s neighbors have completely removed this habitat from their land, and there are huge pressures to sell what remains to developers who want to put in subdivisions — the most lucrative option. There’s also a movement to industrialize the nearby Gulf Coast to mine liquefied natural gas. And beyond these threats to the native habitat, there is the looming challenge of climate change.

The upshot of all of this? Many native animals dependent on these forests will eventually run out of space and resources. There also won’t be enough trees to help purify the air people in the Valley breathe and the water they drink. Flood risks will be higher. And a major part of the Valley’s natural heritage will be lost.

*_{Mike Heep, a private nursery owner, delivers seedlings to a USFWS site in the Valley. Credit: James Foguth / American Forests.}*

To address this situation, American Forests founded the Thornforest Conservation Partnership in 2018 to bring together communities, researchers, industry representatives, agencies and private landowners — like Perez. The group develops science-based plans and goals for conserving the region’s thornforest ecosystem in places that make the most sense for both wildlife and people. Reforesting public land is a major component, and Perez and other local nursery owners provide trees for that effort.

The hope is to preserve this unique corner of the U.S., which supports 1,200 plant species, 300 butterflies and more than 700 vertebrates, including the endangered ocelot.

Nearly all “of the original habitat is gone, and yet this is a very biodiverse area, an important area,” Perez notes. One reason it’s important is that several flyways for bird and butterfly migration traverse the Valley, which sits between wintering zones in Central and South America and summer homes in the U.S. and Canada.

Perez is concerned by the pressures the area faces, but she sees many of her neighbors starting to make changes in their land management practices due to a growing awareness of environmental issues and concern with the effects of climate change.

“They’re not clearing the whole land,” she says. “A lot of them are doing really good work.”

Katherine Gustafson is a freelance writer specializing in helping mission-driven changemakers like tech disruptors and dynamic nonprofits tell their stories.

Natural Climate Solutions: A Win-Win Solution for Our Environment and Our Economy

*_{Coastal and oyster restoration along the coast of Rhode Island Photo Credit: TNC}*

There is growing recognition in the United States that the actions required to spare us from the worst impacts of climate change can also serve as a powerful engine for job creation and economic recovery. The economic benefits of decarbonizing our energy and transportation sectors are relatively clear – large-scale efforts to install wind turbines and solar arrays, build electric vehicle charging stations and cap leaking gas wells will requires a large workforce, potentially creating employment opportunities for hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Natural Climate Solutions — conservation, restoration and improved land management strategies that remove carbon dioxide from the air – can also play a large role in tackling climate change. Indeed, natural and working lands have the potential to reduce overall emissions in the United States by up to 30 percent. Like other climate solutions, these actions can also serve as a powerful mechanism for restoring our economy by creating jobs, generating new sources of income for farm and forest owners and managers, and providing a wide range of economic benefits to underserved and frontline communities across America.

*_{The Blaney family farm in Albany, Ohio. Photo Credit: Alex Snyder/TNC}*

In addition to the direct economic benefits of Natural Climate Solutions, they provide significant indirect economic benefits by also protecting water quality, improving soil health, increasing resilience to floods and drought and providing crucial habitat for wildlife. When one considers the significant benefits that Natural Climate Solutions provide to people and nature, it is clear that they are a win-win solution for our environment and our economy.

The U.S. Nature4Climate coalition has reviewed reports, case studies, and research about the economic value of Nature Climate Solutions. We hope the collective weight of this information will increase public awareness of the numerous benefits of Natural Climate Solutions, elevating these solutions as an integral part of the overall strategy to combat climate change and restore our economy. Over the next month, U.S. Nature4Climate and our coalition partners will highlight the potential of Natural Climate Solutions to help spur an equitable and robust economic recovery in the United States.

Our campaign is themed around the following facts:

Investment in Natural Climate Solutions creates jobs: Planting trees in both rural and urban areas helps create good new jobs while pulling carbon out of the air; these projects also help stimulate the outdoor recreation economy. For example, investing $4-4.5 billion dollars in tree planting can create up to 150,000 jobs. Environmental restoration programs focused on restoring coastal, forest and grassland ecosystems can create up to 40 jobs for each million dollars invested.
Natural Climate Solutions can serve as a mechanism for advancing equity, particularly in urban communities: Urban forestry programs are a particularly powerful force for reducing inequality in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. Recent research indicates widespread inequality in tree cover between low-income and high-income neighborhoods. A program to plant 31.4 million urban trees a year can create nearly 230,000 new jobs. Urban trees can also reduce home energy costs up to 7%, while also reducing health care costs.
Natural Climate Solutions provide new sources of income for owners and managers of farms and forests: Farmers and foresters across America want to be a part of the solution to climate change – and in many cases, already are. Adoption of soil health practices have been proven to increase income and lower costs for farmers over time. Robust and credible carbon markets can also provide a new source of income for farmers and forest owners, while helping companies meet ambitious sustainability goals.

Please visit our new campaign page, www.usnature4climate.org/win-win, and the U.S. Nature4Climate blog to learn more about the powerful role Natural Climate Solutions can play in our economic recovery.

Nathan Henry is the Project Manager for U.S. Nature4Climate.

Growing Trees, Growing Jobs

_{Tahoe Center California Conservation Corps members shape rocks to create the siding for an ADA accessible trail at Grover Hot Springs State Park in Markleeville, Calif. Photo Credit: California Conservation Corps.}

“Hard work, low pay, miserable conditions, and more!”

On its face, the California Conservation Corps’ motto might seem like more of a warning than a recruiting tool, but for thousands, it represents a promise: new skills, entry to a career, even a bit of an adventure.

And it fairly describes the work of roughly 3,400 young people the state agency trains each year for jobs in forestry and other conservation fields.

Planting tree seedlings on steep hillsides on hot summer days and thinning forests of dense vegetation so trees already planted there have room to grow is hard work.

Growing and taking care of trees in cities is also hard. Digging large holes for hardy trees that can withstand relatively harsh city environments and climbing trees to prune branches so they won’t fall on cars and houses can be exhausting.

Yet it’s the kind of work we desperately need more people to do as interest in trees as a solution to climate change and social inequity takes off across America.

And, despite how arduous this work is, the opportunity couldn’t come at a better time. As of August, 1 in 10 Americans was unemployed. People from under-resourced communities in cities and rural areas — two places that have the highest potential for forestry jobs — are among the hardest hit by the recession.

Though they might begin in entry-level positions, Zander Evans, the Executive Director of the Santa Fe-based Forest Stewards Guild, says that people in forestry can soon find themselves running drones, doing mapping and even communicating with residents about prescribed burns.

“There is a career ladder,” he says. Making sure that ladder is accessible to those who need it most is more important than ever. One of the best ways to do that is through job training programs such as the California Conservation Corps, which focuses much of its Corps member recruitment on under-resourced communities.

Growing up in a low-income family in a Los Angeles suburb, Luna Morales’ main exposure to nature was a yearly trip to a state park.

*_{After two years in the California Conservation Corps, Luna Morales, now a crew leader, can fell trees with a chainsaw and has helped reroute creeks. Photo Credit: California Conservation Corps.}*

After two years in the California program, Morales, now 21, can fell trees with a chainsaw and help reroute creeks. She was promoted to crew leader and is working toward her associate’s degree. “With the background I came from,” Morales says, “I never would have expected to be here.”

“The Cs,” as its members call it, was created by the state of California in 1976. Modeled loosely after the national Civilian Conservation Corps that put 3 million people to work during the Great Depression, it is a state agency and a model American Forests and others believe could be replicated during the current recession.

Corps members receive a $1,905 monthly stipend while getting on-the-job training in everything from building and clearing trails to cutting down dead trees and responding to natural and manmade disasters. American Forests works with the group on a number of planting and shrub-clearing projects.

Workforce development programs are also key in urban areas — especially low-income neighborhoods and some communities of color, which tend to have fewer trees and the highest unemployment. The need for people who can plant, trim and prune trees in cities is expected to grow 10% by 2028.

That’s why American Forests works with job training partners in several cities to support and increase capacity for urban forestry programs, through its Tree Equity: Career Pathways Initiative. They have also developed a guide for creating entry-level urban forestry career pathways programs that target people in communities who could benefit most from entering the field.

“It’s definitely a moment where we’re crystal clear about the cost of inaction on our forests, and we are crystal clear about the coordinated effort that it’s going to take to actually make significant change,” says Sarah Lillie Anderson, senior manager of American Forests’ Tree Equity programs.

_{Rucker is hiring others from The Greening of Detroit, one of American Forests’ partners, to work for his own landscaping business because he says the program ensures they are qualified and dependable. Photo Credit: The Greening of Detroit}.

Take William Rucker of Detroit, for example. He had never held a job outside of prison, which he was released from in 2019. He enrolled in an urban forestry training program offered by The Greening of Detroit, a nonprofit that plants trees and provides education and workforce development for people from under-resourced communities, many of them formerly incarcerated.

Rucker has since been hired by “The Greening,” one of American Forests’ partners, and also started his own landscaping business, serving about 30 houses a day. He plans to expand soon and put others to work.

“I’m hiring people from The Greening because I know they’ve been taught, they have qualifications and I can depend on them to show up for work every day,” he says.

Besides forestry skills training, the organization provides a range of support services, helping participants with transportation and housing, as well as basic training about being on time for work. These “wraparound” support services have contributed mightily toward the program’s 87% job placement rate, says Vice President Monica Tabares.

“Rarely have we had an opportunity to address two huge crises, climate change and the economy, at the same time,” says Jad Daley, President of American Forests. “This is the moment to be bold.”

Read the full story about how investing in our forests can help create jobs in American Forests’ magazine.

Michele Kurtz is the Director of Communications at American Forests.