WORKING LAND EASEMENTS AND FOREST CARBON OFFSETS An Opportunity for New Brunswick Woodlot Owners
WHOAre We? In 2012, the New Brunswick Community Land Trust (NBCLT) partnered with Community Forests International (CFI) to pilot an innovative approach to forest carbon offsetting. This trial initiative, the Whaelghinbran Forest Carbon Project, successfully combined working land easements, certified forest management, and carbon offsetting to protect over 200 hectares of Acadian forest and generate approximately $200,000 in revenue. Building upon this success, Community Forests International and the New Brunswick Community Land Trust are now scoping the potential of a regional forest carbon offsetting program for private woodlot owners in Atlantic Canada, and are looking to gauge landowners' interest in the process.
HOW Can I Learn More? The New Brunswick Community Land Trust The New Brunswick Community Land Trust (NBCLT) is a non-profit organization that is committed to supporting ecologically sustainable land-use practices and economic development in rural New Brunswick by helping landowners establish working land easements. (506) 536-3738 . nbclt@forestsinternational.org
Community Forests International Community Forests International (CFI) is an international environmental start-up that works to connect people and their communities to the forests that sustain them.
(506) 536-3738 info@forestsinternational.org
WHAT Are Working Land Easements? A working land easement is a unique tool that allows landowners to protect the ecological values of their land. Working land easements are legally-binding, voluntary agreements that are made between a landowner and a Land Trust. The agreement transfers certain land use rights from the landowner to the Land Trust to ensure that the property is sustainably managed. For example, working land easements often permanently restrict a landowner’s right to subdivide their property or clear cut large areas of their forest. Working land easements are unique in that they are drafted to be as flexible as possible in order to promote the continued use of the land for sustainable forestry and/or agriculture. When the land is sold, the new landowner is similarly held to the conditions of the easement. Working land easements are able to protect against land-use conversion, for example clear cutting a forest to create a suburban subdivision. Under certain carbon offset programs, easements can lower the amount of offsets that must be set aside as insurance in the event of a natural disaster or unforeseen event.