With the growing interest in global warming, climate change, and the influence that human activities have on our environment, there are increasing opportunities for market-based mechanisms to support responsible forestry and environmentally beneficial land use decisions.

An increasingly common market-based mechanism is the “carbon credit” which links marketplace values with the sequestration of carbon. Additional market opportunities exist and are in development for other ecosystem products and services, including payments for water, soil protection, and habitat enhancements.

Although carbon credits are currently grabbing the headlines, the take home message from the evolving “ecosystem marketplace” is that the time may be right for implementation of economic tools that link environmental cause-and-effect relationships and to more robustly reward the full range of environmental stewardship values. There is also a growing need to develop tools to effectively measure and monitor these marketplace transactions.

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Current Projects:

Northwoods Carbon Credit Partnership

The Minnesota North Woods Carbon Credit Partnership will use data from Aitkin and Cass County to identify potential market opportunities for forest-based carbon credits. The project will also explore other ecosystem service markets. Dovetail Partners is assisting with project management while the Manomet Center is conducting the data analysis and modeling.