A National Example for the Climate-Friendly Management of Forests

The Pacific Forest Trust (PFT), a member of the Land Trust Alliance, is a shining example of how land trusts can transform the worth of forested land. By incorporating Natural Climate Solutions into sustainable forest management practices, land trusts like PFT help protect forests and develop new sources of revenue for forest owners.  PFT’s “Retain, Sustain, and Gain” strategy in acquiring land has set an example for other land trusts nationwide by:

• Raising public awareness of the need to Retain our forests
• Creating strong partnerships and pioneering cutting-edge conservation techniques to Sustain our forests
• Ensuring the public can Gain from working forests by incentivizing landowners to protect and sustainably manage their forests that provide new sources of revenue while protecting water supplies, enhancing fish & wildlife habitat, and storing carbon

PFT’s work in California’s Van Eck Forest is an example of this approach in action. Since 2002, PFT has worked with California’s Air Resources Board to establish the first forest carbon project registered by California’s Climate Action Reserve Program – which ultimately helped lead to the creation of California’s cap-and-trade program.

Since 2005, PFT’s stewardship of the 2,200 acre Van Eck Forest has sequestered over 400,000 tons of carbon while creating a sustainable timber business. The revenue generated from this successful partnership has also helped support forest research and graduate scholarships to further advance research into sustainable forest management. PFT has used the knowledge they gained through this project to develop 10 additional carbon projects in California, Washington State, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, and Maine.

Learn more about the Pacific Forest Trust

Learn more about the Van Eck Forest Project