Enrollment in a sustainable forestry program helps ensure that landowners receive the highest value for the carbon credits developed from their land. Landowners enrolled in one of NativState’s forest carbon credit programs participate in at least one of three sustainable forest certification programs, the cost of which NativState bears. In this episode of Forest Matters, NativState VP of Forestry Tim White talks specifically about the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification program. Recognized globally since 1993, FSC certification is the most rigorous standard, preferred by global carbon buyers for its consistency. Therefore, carbon projects with FSC certification generate higher carbon credit prices and long-term off-take agreements, benefiting landowners. In addition to a recap of last episode’s overview of forest carbon programs and sustainable forest certification, Tim discusses:
- FSC Certification and Its Benefits
- Operational Control and Audit Process
- Financial and Market Benefits of FSC Certification
- Sustainability and Long-Term Commitment
- Education and Market Awareness
- Methodology and Long-Term Commitment
- Recommendations to Landowners
Transcript
Forest Matters
Episode 2
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Forest carbon program, Forest Stewardship Council, sustainable forest management, global carbon markets, FSC certification, carbon credits, landowners, operational control, audits, conservation values, carbon buyers, methodology, plot-based inventory, long-term agreements, land legacy.
SPEAKERS
Mark Fortune, Tim White
Mark Fortune 00:00
Does enrolling in a forest carbon program and a sustained in a forest certification program preclude me from ever harvesting wood on my land?
Tim White:
No, it does not. Pretty simple. No, it does not. It may change the way that harvest looks. What contractors you use. It may change the you know the dynamics of the actual harvest, but it’s for sustainability purposes.
Mark Fortune 00:20
Welcome to forest matters, a podcast about sustainable forest management, forest carbon development and the opportunities available to landowners through global carbon markets. Forest matters is brought to you by native state, the leading forest carbon development company for small private landowners. Today, we are back talking with native States Vice President of forestry, Mr. Tim White, and we’re going to spend a little more time speaking specifically about the Forest Stewardship Council, or FSC, as one particular certification program. So tell us a little bit about FSC Forest Stewardship Council. Make sure everybody understands what the acronym, the acronym is and what it means for landowners who enroll in a forest carbon program. So FSC is one of three different certification programs.
Tim White 01:11
FSC is the globally recognized of the three. SFI and ATFS, or tree farm, are the other two. So FSC started back in ‘93 I believe it is, like I said, a global standard that all persons that are involved with must adhere to, okay. And that sounds pretty easy, okay, but when you think about forests in Brazil, the rain forest here, there and yonder, overseas, in Africa, it covers all those so it’s a pretty, pretty broad standard, and it’s, it covers a lot more than just managing trees, okay. But FSC is, as they say, the most rigorous, and that kind of scares some landowners off, I found.
Mark Fortune: 02:05
Well, so I mean, but given the conversations that you’ve been in, I mean with landowners, but certainly with global corporations that are doing due diligence on on forest carbon projects, is it fair to say that FSC is the preferred standard, And if so, it’s
Tim White:
If it’s not, it’s becoming that way, because it gives those carbon buyers peace of mind, knowing that this overall global standard, if they’ve got a project in Zimbabwe or Brazil or Arkansas, are all held to the same standard, the same forest certification standard, so it gives them peace of mind, and they’re willing to pay a little bit more for it, honestly, because of that peace of mind, but it’s a pretty daunting task to be enrolled and to maintain and to get audited and certified and all that that has to happen. It’s a pretty good expense as well, but, but it’s worth it when it comes time to be in the carbon world, yeah,
Mark Fortune:
Well, so let’s talk about an FSC audit. Okay, what goes into it, and what have you seen from the audits that have been done on enrolled acres with us so far?
Tim White:
Well, so far we have had properties enrolled about two months, and I’ve already had one on-site audit and one remote audit or one by phone. Really, they just want to know what we know. Are we, are we exercising what they use? The term operational control. In other words, this landowner can’t just go out and willy nilly do whatever they feel like, whenever they feel like, to their lands. I know that may sound well, that’s the American way, right? Well, true, but, but in this stewardship program, you are committing to do it a certain way, okay, it’s not very limiting, but, but you are making a commitment, and that commitment is worth something. That’s why these global carbon buyers are willing to pay a little extra for it. But, yeah, it’s, it’s the audits are very thorough. They’re on site. Like I said, we go to the land, we see has herbicide been applied? Have they harvested anything? Do they have their boundary lines in place? Are there any threatened or endangered species affected by this? You know what? What work did we do to uncover any of those potential high conservation values of that forest.
Mark Fortune 04:27
So you talk about all the various steps that go through. Who bears the costs of being in an FSC program within a forest carbon?
Tim White 04:41
Well, in native State’s program, native state bears the cost now, any general, any general stewardship. I mean, you can charge, I mean, like somebody could form a group and charge landowners to be in the group, but we’ve chosen to bear that cost ourselves. We not only pay to FSC our dues and that we have to hire a certification body that actually certifies our land that doesn’t work for FSC. We hire them independently, and that’s a cost. And the annual audit, there’s a cost involved with that as well. So it’s, it’s not cheap, I said, but it’s worth it.
Mark Fortune:
Yeah, because it comes back to the landowner in terms of higher carbon credit prices.
Tim White:
Not just, not only higher carbon credit prices, but these credits are sold before they’re ever developed, right? You know, as soon as they hit the market, we’ve got a long term off take agreement that says, Here, these are our FSC acres with carbon credits, and we’ve got agreements in place that’ll buy them right then. So the landowners, there’s no oh my gosh. I hope they sell these things. You know, you know, how long is it going to take to sell my credits? Because nobody gets paid until something gets sold. So, but that’s, this is a pretty good, pretty good answer to that they’re sold.
Mark Fortune 05:58
So in addition to the fact that, I mean, those are two huge benefits, the credits are already sold, and they’re selling, generally speaking, for a higher price than you might see otherwise. What other benefits to landowners are there for being in a FSC program?
Tim White 06:00
It, to me, it demonstrates a pretty high, or actually the highest level of commitment I manage my land right now. Mine is actually in part of mine’s in FSC and part of mine’s in tree farm. But it shows that you are really committed, and you are very conscientious about you take it seriously, your stewardship seriously. it’s it could evolve into being able to sell your wood products when others can’t, because now today, some mills take certain days they take certified wood, which would be FSC, and other days they take general from everybody. So we could see that, depending upon how the markets go, we could see that increase if more world wood producers got into this market. It’s like that other places, but not right here, right now. So that could be a benefit. Just, hey, I want to be able to sell my timber. Well, you’re not limited by a quota. You’re not limited. Hey, it’s you got FSC wood, they’ll take it.
Mark Fortune:
Yeah, and I think that’s important for landowners to understand. And again, we we’ve addressed this question before, but I’m going to ask again, because I know it comes up all the time. Does enrolling in a forest carbon program and a sustainable forest certification program preclude me from ever harvesting wood on my land.
Tim White:
No, it is not, pretty simple. No, it does not. It may change the way that harvest looks. What contractors you use. It may change the, you know, the dynamics of the actual harvest, but it’s for the sustainability purposes, okay? And I’ll give you an example, today in Arkansas, you could, because our BMPs are voluntary, you could go out and cut right up to a stream bank if you were not in any certification program. Well, that’s not going to happen. Should not happen inside a certification especially FSC. There’s very specific language about maintaining those stream buffers and stream crossings and all the ins and outs of the BMP, so that that’s a good thing. Everybody likes clean water, you know. So that’s that’s why it’s there, right?
Mark Fortune:
So backing off from backing up for a second, what has been your biggest surprise or unexpected outcome in working with landowners and carbon buyers about sustainable forest management?
Tim White:
How much they don’t know. I think NativState in specifically we’re we’ve got a huge job ahead of us, and we’ve done a pretty good job so far, not just developing carbon credits and getting all these programs and all this stuff to market, but in educating these landowners. You know, landowners will probably sell timber most landowners once, maybe twice in their lifetime, so I wouldn’t expect them to be very good at it. But when it comes to harvesting or hiring a contractor to do a certain activity on their land, they don’t do it very often. So we have a great opportunity to provide education to that landowner and how’s the best way to how’s the most sustainable way to do that. Okay, yeah, I know you could probably get your brother in law to come down here and do your prescribed burn. Well, is he going to adhere to the Arkansas fire law? Is he going to be is he qualified prescribed burner? Has he been trained? Probably not. Or you could hire a contractor they use, and sleep at night in peace, knowing that it’s done, following all the laws and regulations that are in place. Okay.
Mark Fortune:
Well, and to keep in mind, by doing that, the land, the credits that are going to be generated off that land are under contract to be sold at a higher price. And we talk a lot about leaving a land legacy. This is all part of doing that as part of a forced carbon program.
Tim White:
You know, when you get up in years, a few years, 60s, 70s, 80s, you start thinking about that stuff. You start thinking about, Well, did I leave it better than I found it? And that’s important. Now, there’s some people that don’t care, but the majority of landowners that’s a big thing. And it’s also kind of cool to go to your local hardware store or your local lumber supply and you see the little FSC stamp or little SFI stamp on there, and go, Wow, that is, I know that wood, that lumber, has been sustainably managed, and we didn’t, we didn’t deforest half of Arkansas to get that two by four in the store. So that kind of feels good.
Mark Fortune:
Yeah. Well, one final question just to wrap up, if there’s one, one thought or a couple of thoughts, you want landowners who are considering, you know, forest carbon to know what? What would you want them to know?
Tim White:
Forest carbon in general?
Mark Fortune:
Or sustainable forestry or all of it
Tim White:
That’s, it’s all kind of related. If you’re considering forest carbon, I think the most important thing I’ve learned is that the methodology matters. And you’re probably going to say, What are you talking about? How that carbon credit is developed, is specified by a methodology. You must do this. It’s kind of a cookbook, A, B, C, and there’s a lot of methodologies out there. There’s a lot of forest carbon registries out there. I can think of two or three off the top of my head. Do your homework and find out what’s in that methodology, because that will make your carbon credit worth much, much more if you adhere to a higher standard of methodology than you will – for example, some methodologies do not require a plot based inventory. So I can use technology data sets imagery to determine how much we think, how much biomass, aka carbon, is out there. Or you can do like we do, and do the ACR, which is the American carbon registry. We can do a plot. We can go visit your land, put a plot on that land, measure those trees in person, and then come back in five years and another five years and on and on and on to do the inventory. So that’s just a difference in the two methodologies. That’s the most important part/ And before, and these things are long term. Most of these agreements are long term. So obviously, you know, be at peace with whatever decision you make, because it was going to affect you in probably two generations down the road. And, of course, read the contract, and, you know, get all the fine print. That’s that’s important too.
Mark Fortune:
Yeah, all right. Well, Tim, once again, thanks for your time, and I’m sure we’ll be talking more.
Tim White:
I hope, I look forward to it.
Marl Fortune:
All right, thanks.
Tim White:
Thank you.
Mark Fortune 12:27
Forest matters is brought to you by native state, the leading forest carbon development company for small private landowners. Learn more@nativestate.com