“With agroforestry, we can grow trees and produce food for people by working with nature”
Kathy Dice, Red Fern Farm
Agroforestry is, in a nutshell, farming with trees. But agroforestry, which is considered one of the earliest forms of agriculture and has been practiced by peoples around the world for generations, can take many forms. A renewed interest in agroforestry comes from the opportunity it presents to turn farmers into climate heroes, sequestering carbon on working farmland while keeping it productive and profitable.
Kathy Dice and Tom Wahl have been experimenting with agroforestry on their farmland in southeastern Iowa for over 20 years, and they have emerged as leaders and mentors to a new generation of farmers who are looking to adopt a more resilient kind of agriculture. With over seventy different species of fruit and nut crops on their farm, Red Fern Farm stands in stark contrast to the majority of Iowa farmland: millions of acres of corn and soybean monocultures. “We’re trying to mimic the biodiversity you would see in nature,” says Kathy.
Red Fern Farm represents a hyper-diverse, integrated agroforestry operation, but other forms of modern agroforestry can also produce substantial benefits with more simplified practices. Alley cropping is the practice of planting trees in widely-spaced rows, with crops like corn or soybeans grown in between the rows until the trees reach maturity. Silvopasture utilizes the principles of managed grazing to pasture livestock beneath stands of trees without harming the trees or the soil. Forest farming is a term used to describe the cultivation of a wide variety of valuable plants and mushrooms that grow best in a forest environment.
Kathy Dice on Red Fern Farm. Photo credit: Alita Films
The potential for agroforestry as a tool for both climate resilience and climate mitigation is significant. Agroforestry could sequester nearly 6 gigatons of carbon per year globally, more than any other management method for agricultural land (Roe et al 2022). That is the equivalent of burning 50 billion barrels of oil. Project Drawdown ranks silvopasture ninth in its list of climate solutions – higher than rooftop solar power, electric vehicles, and geothermal energy – with additional agroforestry methods ranking in the top twenty. In the US, agroforestry has the potential to remove at least 156 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year from the atmosphere, the equivalent of shutting 39 coal-fired power plants.
The Savanna Institute, a nonprofit organization created in 2013 to catalyze agroforestry in the US Midwest, has been working to expand agroforestry adoption through partnerships with experienced farmers like Kathy Dice and Tom Wahl. Red Fern Farm has been featured in the Savanna Institute’s Pioneer Agroforestry Farm Tour Series and online agroforestry courses. Kathy and Tom have served as mentors in Savanna Institute’s Agroforestry Apprenticeship, and presented at the organization’s yearly Perennial Farm Gathering, which brings together hundreds of agroforestry experts and enthusiasts from across the Midwest and beyond. In addition to Tom and Kathy, Savanna Institute shares the stories of other Midwestern farmers who have adopted agroforestry through Landowner spotlights and video series.
Red Fern Farm. Photo credit: Alita Films
Through partnerships with farmers, researchers, and other collaborators, the Savanna Institute seeks to overcome barriers to agroforestry that cannot be addressed by farmers individually. Land access and tenure present significant challenges for aspiring agroforesters, since many agroforestry crops do not become profitable for 5-10 years, and are not worth investing in if land access might be lost. Investment mechanisms to support beginning perennial farmers is a key need. By developing markets for key crops, and breeding improved varieties, the Savanna Institute is working to make agroforestry work for more farms. Through a network of on-the-ground demonstration farms, the Savanna Institute is also working, like Tom and Kathy, to stir people’s imaginations with living examples of what agroforestry can look like.
“We made all the mistakes – every last one of them,” Tom Wahl says of his time on the farm. His statement could just as easily describe humanity’s response to the climate crisis. And yet, Kathy and Tom have persevered.
With agroforestry, they have hope for the future.
Red Fern Farm is a family-owned nursery and farm in southeastern Iowa owned and operated by Kathy Dice and Tom Wahl. It is also the site of ongoing research on a variety of tree crops.
The Savanna Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that works with farmers and scientists to lay the groundwork for widespread agroforestry adoption in the Midwest US.
This story is republished from The Nature Conservancy in Idaho’s website.
In the face of a changing climate, more farmers are joining a growing movement to build healthier soil and more resilient water supplies using regenerative agriculture. By shifting to practices that restore nature instead of deplete it, farmers can improve yields and profits, meet increasing consumer demand and support generations of farmers to come.
In the following profiles, you will meet Idaho farmers and TNC partners who are embracing soil health practices to create a better future for their families, communities and nature.
Brad Johnson
A Lifelong Passion for Soil Health
Brad Johnson Agricultural Strategy Manager, Photo Credit: TNC/Neil Crescenti
Brad Johnson, The Nature Conservancy’s agriculture strategy manager, grew up farming the same land in Tensed, ID that his father and grandfather had farmed since the 1930s. For generations, his family grew wheat, barley, peas, lentils and blue grass seed using conventional farming methods, including tillage. The tillage caused heavy erosion where soil washed out in ditches or piled up on surrounding highways.
But when Brad was 12 years old, he had an “ah-ha” moment that would change his view of farming. His father began using a no-till drill and for the first time, the erosion was gone. “We saw results that very first year,” Brad says. “Every time we no-tilled, the erosion stopped. And every time we tilled again, the erosion came back.”
Witnessing these results firsthand sparked in Brad a lifelong passion for soil health. When he worked as a ranch hand implementing no-till practices in Salmon, ID, he started learning about other regenerative techniques, like integrating livestock and crop rotation and diversity. “I began to see that soil health was a system of regenerative agriculture principles, with each practice being an essential cog in the wheel,” he says.
Brad joined TNC in 2019, where he now manages a demonstration farm and works directly with Idaho farmers to provide them with resources, equipment and consultation to implement regenerative agriculture practices on their own farms. And while Brad has seen a growing interest in soil health over the years, he still feels concern every time he sees a “mini-Dust Bowl” of eroded topsoil alongside fields. “Healthy soil takes a long time to build back once it’s lost. We can do substantial repair in 5 years or less if we start now.”
For Brad, the many rewards of regenerative agriculture outweigh the risks. “We get healthier food when we work with nature instead of against it,” he says. “When we use regenerative practices that mimic nature, we can increase farm income, improve the quality of life for producers and have healthier communities. We can be part of the solution to climate change and help create cleaner, more abundant water supplies.”
As a third generation farmer and soil health advocate from a young age, Brad is excited by the opportunities for agriculture and conservation to work hand-in-hand. “Supporting Idaho agriculture and soil health is my passion,” he says. “Farmers are inherently stewards of the land because it’s the basis of their livelihoods, and conservation is the key to protecting the land farmers make their living from.”
Bob Howard
Leaving the Land Better for the Next Generation
Bob Howard, Bob has partnered with TNC’s agriculture program, Photo Credit: TNC/Neil Crescenti
Hammett-based rancher Bob Howard does some of his best thinking in his “four-wheeled think tank,” driving along fields and pastures to check on his cattle. A longtime rancher, co-founder with the Wilsey family of Desert Mountain Grass-Fed Beef—a cooperative of ranches and farms that use regenerative farming practices—and grandfather to 12 grandkids, Bob is eager to think outside the box and learn new practices that build soil health. His reason? “I’m always thinking about my grandkids, what kind of future they’ll have,” says Bob.
Bob’s willingness to experiment is what led him to partner with a local farmer on regenerative agriculture practices in Grand View. United by a shared interest in soil health, and with TNC providing consultation support, they teamed up to create a regenerative system of farming and ranching by planting 75 acres of corn into living Timothy hay. “We’re trying new things, and we’re doing it better all the time,” says Bob.
As the Timothy grows as a cover crop, the living roots help store water, absorb carbon and promote biodiversity, resulting in a healthier landscape and watershed. After the corn is harvested, Bob’s herd of 700 cattle rotationally graze the field to keep the grass in a juvenile state, ensuring the ground stays covered and maximizing the below-ground soil health benefits. The manure provides a natural fertilizer that further enhances the soil with nutrients and microbes, reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers.
The partnership provides more than just practical benefits for both farmer and rancher. Bob sees regenerative agriculture practices, including sustainable grazing, as one of the best ways to restore the health of the land—and the planet. “We’re just on the edge of what we can do—and the scary thing is what will happen if we don’t change,” says Bob.
For Bob, the learning curve of regenerative agriculture is an investment in a better future. “My hope is that 50 years from now, we will have healthy land to make a living from while feeding people locally, removing carbon from the atmosphere and restoring our land,” he says. Through his cooperative Desert Mountain Grass-Fed Beef, Bob is working to scale regenerative ranching across the West by bringing together ranching families who care about soil health and land stewardship. “These practices are good for the land, which benefits the whole of society. But for me, it all comes back to my grandkids,” says Bob. “You’ve got to leave it better, no matter how long it takes.”
Interested in learning about how regenerative agriculture could benefit your farm? Contact Brad Johnson, TNC’s agriculture strategy manager.
Solar energy is a necessary tool in the fight against climate change. Experts agree that sourcing more energy from cleaner sources, such as solar panels, will help mitigate some of climate change’s future impacts. For America’s farmers and ranchers, this means limiting the regular occurrence of catastrophic weather events—such as floods, droughts, and intense heat waves—that threaten land and livelihood, as well as slowing less obvious climactic shifts that affect crops and livestock. A new study in Nature Food shows that if we don’t stem climate change and its associated effects, we’ll see significant impacts to food production, and thus food security, much sooner than previously predicted.
Yet without a thoughtful approach to the physical deployment of solar energy, American agriculture could still suffer. The U.S. Department of Energy projects that 10.3 million acres of solar will be needed to decarbonize the nation’s electrical grid by mid-century, with 90 percent of the utility-scale solar capacity likely to be installed in rural communities. And given that solar developers often prefer flat, open, well-drained landscapes near existing electrical infrastructure for their arrays, some of America’s most productive, versatile, and climate-resilient farmland in these communities could be at risk. When combined with threats from sprawl and low-density development—which are highlighted in AFT’s Farms Under Threat report—the conversion of agricultural land for non-agricultural uses is a real concern.
The U.S. Department of Energy projects that 10.3 million acres of solar will be needed to decarbonize the nation’s electrical grid by mid-century, with 90 percent of the utility-scale solar capacity likely to be installed in rural communities.
AFT recognizes the potential tension between deploying massive ground-mounted solar energy infrastructure and conserving our nation’s most productive farmland. To navigate this challenge, AFT is developing a “Smart Solar Siting” approach that seeks a dynamic and innovative middle ground.
With this thoughtful strategy:
Solar development is directed to more marginal and less productive farmland, if sited on farmland at all
Farmers are empowered and informed to make decisions that support long-term farm viability
Regenerative approaches are incorporated into siting policy and industry practices, especially on the best farmland.
Although our involvement in this space is relatively new, we’re already recognized as thought-leaders and experts in the field, both regionally and nationally. Just last week, Samantha Levy—AFT’s Climate Policy Manager—was quoted in a New York Times article about solar energy, sharing a vision for thoughtful solar development.
Beyond our work on siting traditional solar arrays, AFT is also helping lead the way in advancing agrivoltaics, or dual-use solar. At its core, agrivoltaics enables agricultural and energy production on the same piece of land. By raising solar panels higher off the ground and spacing them further apart than in traditional arrays, agrivoltaic systems allow more sunlight to reach the ground. Farmers can then grow certain crops or raise livestock under the panels, as well as maneuver tractors and other equipment. Different from simple co-location, agrivoltaic systems are designed to enable farming activity throughout the life of the solar facility in a manner that is consistent with the productive capacity of the land. To be sure, these systems are more expensive to install than traditional arrays, but where incentives and other mechanisms are present to drive this approach, a win-win situation can emerge for clean energy, rural communities, and agriculture.
In addition to efficiently producing clean energy, agrivoltaics can offer important economic opportunities for farmers through the combination of solar lease payments and continued agricultural production.
AFT is at the forefront of efforts to study and evaluate the efficacy of this approach—and for good reason. Recently, AFT’s Brooks Lamb co-authored a report on agrivoltaics, published by the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale. Lamb and his co-author, Bill Pedersen, explored the many benefits of this system. In addition to efficiently producing clean energy, agrivoltaics can offer important economic opportunities for farmers through the combination of solar lease payments and continued agricultural production. This consistent, reliable, diversified income could be a saving grace for many farmers, especially small and mid-sized farmers who often struggle with cash flow. Additional benefits—for communities, for wildlife, for farmland conservation, and even for increased agricultural production of certain crops, grasses, and livestock—are possible, too. Looking forward, the report also shares advice for local communities who want to encourage agrivoltaics adoption and suggests further studies that could propel this practice.
Interest in this innovative system—which has roots in some of the same dual-use philosophies as agroforestry—is also growing outside of AFT. Across the country, clean energy associations, farm advocates, solar developers, and researchers are partnering with farmers and communities to explore applications for dual use and novel agrivoltaic systems. The Associated Press recently dedicated an entire article to agrivoltaics, and this piece was picked up by both local papers and national media. To further understand the burgeoning interest in this system, just type “agrivoltaics” into your favorite online search engine. In a second or less, you’ll see a bevy of recent results.
AFT strongly supports and is committed to urgent actions to address climate change. This work complements AFT’s programs that increase the adoption of regenerative agriculture, support women in farming, advance equity, bolster rural economies and agricultural viability, and enhance farmland protection.
Through smart solar siting, applied research, and policy innovation in support of agrivoltaics, American Farmland Trust is meeting the challenges—and opportunities—of clean energy production and farmland conservation head-on. Our work seeks to serve people, places, and the planet, securing a bright and productive future for farming and the world.
Ethan Winter serves as the Northeast Solar Specialist for American Farmland Trust.
This article was originally written for the American Farmland Trust website.
When The Nature Conservancy helped John Reed buy more land for his purebred Angus cattle operation, it fulfilled one of the rancher’s long-time dreams.
A North Dakota native who now makes his home in the Brooten area of Minnesota, John earned his master’s degree in animal science. He runs the business with his son Jake, who has a doctorate in ruminant nutrition.
John started out by acquiring land and raising cattle. He wanted to grow his herd and business so Jake could join him, but he confronted an obstacle that ranchers often face: cows need a lot of space. It’s difficult to find good pastureland for sale.
“A lot of land has been plowed under. A lot of land went to corn that never should have been planted,” he says.
Even when land is available, it’s often beyond the budget of even an established rancher. A cattle operation can’t always produce enough revenue to recover the cost of the land. Ranchers can rent land, but renting has its drawbacks too. Rental agreements are subject to renewal every few years, so a renter might lose the land if the landowner decides to lease to someone else. It can be difficult to build a herd without the certainty that you’ll have enough land to maintain it.
John was renting ranchland about 60 miles from his home and ranch. He was stuck: he wanted to expand the business so that it was large enough for Jake to run cattle too, but he didn’t feel comfortable renting more land and what land is available for sale is expensive.
In time, a nearby property came up for sale—valuable property with native grassland and a creek. It was reasonably priced, but it was still too expensive for a cattle-only operation. But John knew that this land could be the perfect addition to his ranch, and he found a solution: a conservation easement.
Conservation easements are legal agreements that landowners enter into with public entities or land trusts. They prohibit certain land uses, such as development, while allowing the land to be used for agricultural or other purposes. The income from selling an easement on their land allows farmers, ranchers, and other landowners to keep the land and maintain their property rights. For John, having pastureland for his herd nearby saved him time and money, and it reduced his environmental footprint because he no longer had to travel a long way to reach his property.
With help from The Nature Conservancy, he was able to acquire the new property in part by placing a conservation easement on the land, which is now administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The easement for which he was paid a portion of the value of the land, ensures that the property will remain a working grassland. The Reeds’ land, which is used for cattle grazing, has been added to the Northern Tallgrass Prairie National Wildlife Refuge.
Conserving and Building a Family Legacy
A lot changed for John because of the easement. “Knowing it’s there and part of the ranch, knowing we can use it forever without worrying about renting—it allows us to expand.”
John understands that overgrazing can promote erosion, which damages the land and water. His land has loamy sand and shallow topsoil, so it can be susceptible to wind erosion if it is not managed correctly. However, the right amount of grazing can keep the land healthy. It prevents plants from becoming root bound, and cows’ presence on the land works the soil in helpful ways. John also understands the value of native prairie plants, including when they should be grazed and when they need time to recover.
To give their land the opportunity to rest and recover, the Reeds maintain a complex fencing system that protects the land from overgrazing, keeps the creek bed from being damaged by cattle, and keeps runoff out of the creek. Over the years, John has been able to add 50 head of cattle to his business. He’s also added fencing and water lines.
When John acquired the new property, a number of invasive plant species with poor value for wildlife were growing on it, including cedar, alfalfa, and brome. Native grasses provide better nutrition for cattle and are more tolerant of droughts. By restoring the land to native species, the Reeds can keep their feed costs down. In addition, the land stores more carbon and has more value for wildlife.
“The land is beautiful,” John says. “There’s beauty in native grassland, and in the summer it comes alive with wildflowers including goldenrod and lady slippers. Wildlife is abundant too, especially grassland birds.” For him and his family, a conservation easement was the key to maintaining his successful livelihood and preserving this piece of grassland forever. Minnesota benefits too—grasslands protect water quality and keep carbon in the ground.
For a challenge as great as climate change, there are no silver bullets. Right now, much of the conversation on solutions focuses on curbing greenhouse gas emissions through investment in renewable energy, electric vehicles, and low-carbon construction. These are vital strategies for addressing climate change, but the critical role conservation of natural and working lands plays in mitigating climate change is often left out of this discussion.
There are many benefits associated with land and water conservation. Taking action to protect and restore our forests, grasslands and coastal wetlands provides habitat for wildlife, improves water quality, and makes communities more resilient to extreme weather and storm events – all while creating jobs. At the same time, conservation is an important climate change strategy. Forests, grasslands and coastal wetlands draw in and store carbon from the atmosphere. Conservation actions can increase how much these ecosystems take in and prevent the carbon they already store from being released.
U.S. Nature4Climate is highlighting conservation success stories that illustrate how conservation action is climate action. Conservation is a climate strategy that can take place everywhere – from America’s vast sagebrush steppe to New England’s lush forests. We will highlight the benefits of conserving coastal ecosystems, like salt marshes and forested tidal wetlands. These “blue carbon” ecosystems have the potential to store up to 25 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, while also providing habitat for fish and other marine species, stabilizing shorelines, and supporting recreational and commercial fishing.
Additions to and sustainable management of America’s national parks, forests, monuments, and wildlife refuges are a key part of our conservation and climate action story too. For instance, the Angeles National Forests provides clean water, access to nature, and jobs. At the same time, the area’s shrublands and forests store carbon equivalent to taking 2.5 million cars off the road for a year .
We will also recognize the important role that private landowners can play in our efforts to conserve lands and waters. Farmers and ranchers who sustainably manage their lands provide habitat for wildlife and sequester carbon. For example, rancher John Reed worked with The Nature Conservancy and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to place a conservation easement on his land – protecting important native grassland from development.
We will highlight the leadership provided by Indigenous communities in actualizing the climate benefits of conservation action. For example, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation implemented a climate change strategy on reservation land that helps protect ecologically important whitebark pine trees. In addition to capturing carbon, these trees provide food sources for grizzly bears and help protect water supplies to surrounding communities. Through a combination of tree planting and controlled burns, the Salish and Kootenai Tribes are helping whitebark pines survive and thrive.
Even urban parks have a role to play and can sequester nearly as much carbon per acre as tropical rainforests. Any individual park’s impact may be small, but with more than 20,000 city parks nationwide, the collective benefits add up. Meanwhile, innovative conservation projects – like Atlanta’s recently completed Cook Park – support urban infrastructure to manage water during storm surges, provide shade to cool urban heat islands, and ensure more equitable access to nature and recreation for millions of people
Photo Credit: Jeremy Roberts/Sage Grouse Initiative
For sagebrush ecosystems in the western U.S., land conservation is climate action. Stretching across more than 200 million acres, these rangelands are home to pronghorn, sage-grouse, and over 350 other species of conservation concern. But the expansive sagebrush sea is shrinking at an alarming rate due to wildfire, invasive species, and drought. When these healthy rangelands convert to weedy annuals, wash away with erosion, or burn up in smoke, we lose the carbon they keep stored in the soil and threaten this unique habitat.
In rangelands, durable carbon is stored in the soil and roots of long-lived perennial plants that return year after year. To keep this ecosystem healthy for wildlife habitat and the livelihoods of people who live and work here, we focus on protecting and restoring diverse, native, perennial plant communities. Because the sagebrush sea is so large, a modest amount of carbon per acre adds up to a huge reserve across the West. Most of the West is public land, administered predominately by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. Because these agencies are so important to the ecosystem, where The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and partners can help them improve policies and practices, the beneficial impact to wildlife habitat and ecosystem function can be significant.
Photo Credit: Matt Cahill/The Nature Conservancy
The Problem: Invasive Weeds
Invasive species, especially annual grasses like cheatgrass and medusahead, displace native perennial grasses through competition and after wildfire. These invasives produce copious amounts of light, dry tinder that fuels larger and more frequent wildfires. Once these species get established, they tend to drive increasingly severe cycles of invasion and fire. Their rapid annual life cycles, prodigious reproduction rates, and easily transported seeds means invasive annual grasses are quick to colonize disturbed sites, spreading the problem across the range.
Sagebrush steppe invaded by annual grasses stores less carbon than intact sites. Combined with increased erosion of unstable soils and the emissions from wildfires themselves, disturbed annual systems may convert to carbon sinks, releasing more carbon into the atmosphere than they store. Adding to this, cheatgrass likely benefits from the increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels of a warming climate, growing faster and larger and pushing the sagebrush steppe ecosystems even further away from their natural state. We are already seeing large areas of the sagebrush steppe convert into weedy annual systems, potentially permanent transitions that leave people, wildlife, and the climate worse off.
The Solution: Proactive Management & Improved Restoration
Keeping sagebrush ecosystems intact is a Natural Climate Solution, as healthy sagebrush steppe communities contribute an important co-benefit by maintaining belowground carbon reserves across hundreds of millions of acres. The unique dynamics of this systems – immense, remote, and publicly managed to a large extent – means TNC must work beyond just typical protection measures like land ownership and easements to support the ecosystem. Our land conservation solutions focused on resilient ecosystems will also maintain these relatively stable carbon reserves.
These efforts focus on proactive management and improved restoration to keep invasive annual grasses at a minimum and foster native perennial plant communities. TNC is investing heavily in developing innovative seed technologies that aim to help native species germinate and establish at higher rates, improving the success of restoration efforts. With management, TNC works closely with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and livestock producers to develop better regulations and practices that help both the agency and private landowners promote healthy rangelands. Traditional protection still plays an important role, especially where TNC helps private landowners secure conservation easements that keep ranches as working lands, limiting development of intact sagebrush habitats.
Solutions in Action: Innovation & Community Partnerships
Photo Credit: Working Lands for Wildlife - 2021 – Warner Mountains – Jeremy Roberts
What does this work look like on the ground? Here are a few examples where TNC has specific strategies designed to improve ecosystem resiliency for the unique qualities of this landscape, protecting stored carbon in the process.
Conservation Innovation
Successfully restoring sagebrush ecosystems, especially following increasingly large and severe wildfires, is a daunting challenge. Managers attempt restoration on hundreds of thousands of acres each year, often with poor results caused by unpredictable weather and a number of other barriers to restoration success. The western semiarid climate is particularly unpredictable; boom or bust is the norm with rarely an “average” year in between. Without rain or snow, native seeds struggle to establish, and without natives to compete against, invasive annuals thrive in the stark charred landscape of a post-fire world.
How can we give those seeds a fighting chance? TNC, together with government research scientists, is innovating with commercial seed coating and pelleting processes that can deliver extra nutrients, other beneficial compounds, or protection against herbicides that are needed to treat invasives. In each case, we are giving native seeds a boost to overcome a specific barrier limiting their germination and growth. These concepts, common in commercial agriculture, are cutting edge in wildland restoration. In partnership with seed coating companies, we are developing and testing a dozen prototypes across five states to improve restoration success. We aim to integrate successful technologies into the BLM’s immense and complex restoration infrastructure, the most important path to large-scale native species restoration. Widespread and successful restoration will promote carbon storage in sagebrush steppe habitats.
But every problem is a management problem too. Livestock grazing is a leading economic engine for many rural communities and the most common management consideration for sagebrush ecosystems. These communities also provide much of the labor, funding, and attention needed to restore and maintain the ecosystem. Where livestock grazing supports communities, communities can in turn support sagebrush ecosystems. However, grazing policies often lock producers into no-win situations that make them unable to respond effectively to wildfire, drought, and invasive annual grasses.
TNC has a portfolio of working ranches across the west, and each is exploring TNC has a portfolio of working ranches across the west, and each is exploring how we understand, test, and demonstrate rangeland conservation using livestock grazing systems. The Matador Ranch in Montana uses its pasture forage to improve management on home ranches of local producers by incentivizing actions to enhance wildlife habitat and requiring grasslands not be plowed which ensures vast stores of soil carbon remain in-place. At Utah’s Dugout Ranch, TNC is studying how heritage cattle breeds that require less water could still be economically viable in an arid climate. The Red Canyon Ranch in Wyoming works cooperatively with several local producers to graze specifically for better native vegetation conditions. In all these cases, using livestock to sustain and improve our rangeland resources can create a virtuous cycle that keeps in place native species and the carbon benefits they create.
Sagebrush: A Natural Climate Solution
Sagebrush ecosystems play an important role in the nation’s climate future. Keeping these places intact is a management problem and fixing them where they need it is a restoration problem, but both are climate solutions to keep more carbon in the soil across millions of acres. Because of the unique challenges of scale, ownership, and threats on the range, we need solutions that work for people, wildlife, and the climate together.
On August 9th, 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its 6th 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.
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.
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. Nature4Climatesteering committee.
