Organizations with projects in Florida will share in more than $40 from the Inflation Reduction Act to connect private forest landowners with emerging climate markets.
That portion was part of an investment of nearly $145 million announced Friday by the USDA and the U.S. Forest Service that will benefit nearly every state in the Southern Region, with more than half of the funding awards granted within the Southern Region alone.
Southern Region Awardees:
The Longleaf Alliance: $1,845,857
- Projects in: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia
Urban Forest Carbon Registry: $1,999,950
- Projects in: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee
U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities: $20,000,000
- Projects in: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia
- American Forest Foundation: $20,000,000
- Projects in: Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia
- Center for Heirs’ Property Preservation: $10,000,000
- Projects in: Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas
- Ducks Unlimited: $10,000,000
- Projects in: Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee (Flyway Forests)
- Georgia Forestry Foundation: $4,000,000
- Projects in: Georgia
- Livelihoods Knowledge Exchange Network (LIKEN): $2,000,000
- Projects in: Kentucky
- Magnolia Land Partners, Inc.: $1,978,714
- Projects in: Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas
- Rural Action, Inc.: $6,000,000
- Projects in: Kentucky, Virginia
- Sky Harvest Resources LLC: $4,000,000
- Projects in: Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Virginia
What are climate markets?
- By purchasing carbon credits, businesses and other entities can offset their carbon dioxide emissions through the activities of others, such as planting trees or conserving forests. This purchase may allow forest owners, both public and private, rural and urban, to gain financially from their contribution to the forest carbon sink.
- Climate mitigation and forest resilience markets create economic incentives for environmental conservation on private lands, but many private lands have been kept out of markets due to barriers such as high start-up/enrollment costs, high acreage threshold requirements, lack of technical assistance, etc.
- The Southern Group of State Foresters advocates for sustainable forest markets, including carbon/climate markets, to help safeguard the environmental, economic and societal benefits of forests.
Why is this important?
- As the South continues to grow, urbanization will have a drastic impact on our forests. According to the U.S. Forest Service’s Southern Forest Futures Report, urbanization is threatening up to 23 million southern forest acres.
- Southern forests actively support clean air and water, wildlife habitat, community health and more, while over105 million southerners depend on the benefits provided by the roughly 245 million acres of remaining forestland.
- With 86% the South’s forestland held mostly by private families and individuals, robust forest markets like these are necessary to help these families have the financial means to collectively keep the southern forest landscape intact.
- $29 million from this announcement represents funding that has already been made available to states and territories to develop technical assistance programs that will connect underserved landowners to incentives, programs, and markets – including assisting landowners in understanding and navigating opportunities in emerging markets for climate mitigation or forest resilience.
WGCU is your trusted source for news and information in Southwest Florida. We are a nonprofit public service, and your support is more critical than ever. Keep public media strong and donate now. Thank you.