A5.2 Community forests
Support/expand community forests that consider carbon sequestration in their management goals.
Washington State’s Community Forest Trust Program provides some funding for 50% matching grants to buy working forest land of significance to neighboring communities and making it community forest. The program is currently creating an inventory of current and potential community forests.
The Nisqually Land Trust maintains the Nisqually Community Forest.
Since 2001, Bellingham has had a program to purchase available land in the Lake Whatcom Watershed, the source of the city’s water supply. It’s funded by watershed fees on customers’ water bills. So far, they’ve purchased approximately 2,229 acres at a cost of $33.7 million dollars. (The City has also protected on additional 164 acres of land through conservation easements or restrictive covenants.)
The US Forest Service has developed iTree Tools, “a state-of-the-art, peer-reviewed [Windows] software suite” for urban and rural forestry analysis and benefits assessment. It’s intended to strengthen forest management and advocacy by quantifying forest structure and the environmental benefits that trees provide. It includes a interactive webpage providing estimates of a variety of benefits from each counties’ forests, including carbon sequestration. (This is their estimate for Thurston County.) (They also have a newsletter.)