Ecocho: You Search, We Grow Trees

Hey kids,

Check this out: http://www.ecocho.com/. This isn't the first time that I've seen a spin-off or modified manifestation of a popular search engine, but I guess I'm more than a little intrigued by this one - they'll plant 2 trees (in NSW, Australia; credits are certified by KSGW under the NSW GGAS) for every 1,000 searches, effectively offsetting 1 ton of carbon. Just think, you could offset 1/1,000 of a ton of carbon during your next search! If you drive 10 miles to work in the morning, and your car gets 20mpg (and burning one gallon of gasoline releases roughly 20lbs CO2) you'd just need to do 5 searches on echcho to offset your morning's carbon emissions!

Actually, my dorky little calculations are doing a bit of a disservice to this well-intentioned website. One of it's strengths is that within its list of simplified answers to FAQs, they admit that much more needs to be done to tackle climate change than afforestation alone, but that tree planting can certainly make a meaningful difference. It seems they've put Yahoo's technology to good use. However, they seem to stick with touting trees' carbon benefits, and don't mention any other ecosystem services. What do you all think? Is this an effective way to raise peoples' awareness in general, and create a link between climate change, trees, and environmental/human health?

News Summary for 4/5-4/20

- Gov Incentives – Land Econ article (Suter, Poe, & Bills, 2008) concludes that 1-time sign-up bonuses are > cost-effective at incr cons than increases in annual payments.
- Gov Incen – US Forest Service will spend $54 mill on cons ease on working forests via Forest Legacy Program in ’08. 35 projects in 32 states
- Gov Incen – NOAA is requesting comments by June 9 on revisions to Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program (CELCP)
- Cons Finance – REDD in the USA? some individuals in AR bought forest land, asking folks to lease it for $200/yr per 1k sq ft.

- WQT – Ches Bay watermen considering suing state agencies re: water quality & economic impacts; potential driver for TMDL regulation in the Chesapeake, wqt.

- REDD – Marriott signs agreement w/ Brazilian state (Amazonas) to protect trees. Gives $2mill for 1.4mill acres.
- C tools – COMET-VR to pair up with COLE.
- C tools – Wilderness Society report criticizes USFS’ COLE, C Calculation tool, other tools – good effort, but coarse scale. News story, report

- Renew NRG – Waste Management going to open 60 new landfill gas-to-energy facilities. Dell HQ is using 100% of the power from 1st Austin TX facility.
- Renew NRG – CO Universities, Nat Renew NRG Lab, businesses partner on C2B2 (CO Center for Biorefining and Biofuels) to research biofuel/refining tech.
- Cellulosic biomass – Iowa State U, ConocoPhillips, Nat Renew NRG Lab partner on dev tech for converting (mostly ag) non-food cell biomass into transportation fuels.

- Misc – U of Missouri research – the public prioritizes local env issues. Top 3: local drinking water, reducing US water poll, impr urban air poll issues like smog. Global warming is 8th.
- Misc – over 50% of paper used in US is recovered for recycling.

News Summary for 3/24-4/4

Meetings / Seminars
- WSJ ECO:nomics, Creating Environmental Capital conference - was invite only/$$$ & w/lots of big-wigs. Wal-mart: we’re not sure when we’ll get to 0 waste and 100% renew NRG. GE: capitalizing on green tech. Governator: re-think nuclear? Rainforest Action Network: kickin’ it old school, crashes party & slams ADM re: palm oil (w/schoolchildren petitions, no less). Summary of conference
- WQT – just came across a 2/21 PA Sen Repub Policy Committee hearing on Ches Bay nutr reduction goals. Speculations on why nutr trading isn’t going gangbusters. Main points below, audio file here
- C – Western Climate Initiative Offsets Subcommittee – discussed what will qualify as offsets under WCI’s cap&trade (incl role of forestry, ag). Draft proposal out ~May. PPTs

News
- WL miti – EPA/Corps issue official reg’s on wetland miti (had been just guidance). Changes: gives pref to miti from (in order): mitigation banks, in-lieu fee programs, ~on-site mitigation (big change b/c on-site was previously 60% of miti); watershed-scale miti gets pref; in-lieu held to miti bank standards; approval process has timelines. Regs, detailed analysis, news story
- All things Mitigation - Ecosystem Marketplace’s Mitigation Mail
---Species recovery credits – if there’s TES habitat on gov land, agency (ex – Army) can shift respons of protecting habitat to adjacent landowners. Criticisms: less accountabil than cons banking (mngt/monitoring plans, ecological milestones); no endowments to cover unforeseen exp; long-t mngt stays w/ landowner (as opposed to a cons group); less/no transparency (/landowner confidentiality).
---Pomo tribe (CA) creating WL miti bank to miti for development w/in their lands
---GA school board to set up a WL miti bank on their lands
---WA state lets local gov give final approval of WL banks
---rural WA credits go for $75k, Seattle/Belleview credits go for $400-500k
---new 500-acre bank in MS

-WQT – MD announces final [point-to-point source] nutrient trading. Have to upgrade WWTPs before can trade.
- WQ – Nature article on study of (72 US) streams’ ability to absorb N: 10-20% w/in 1 hour. As incr N loads, “precipitous drop” in abil to absorb. Impli: if incr N (say, from incr biofuels prod), more N pollution/dead zones. Mullholland et al., 2008, Nature, vol. 452.

- All things C - Ecosystem Marketplace’s V-Carbon News
---TNC has vol C credits to VCS & CCS standards from project in LA, pricey ($20/credit)
---JPMorgan buys UK C offset co
---Env Defense has RFP for potential offset providers on new FightGlobalWarming.com, which helps co’s buy hi-qual C offsets
- C – new WY legis: 1) estab state reg framework for C seq projects, 2) gives owners surf rights the rights to underground CO2 storage
- C – AgraGate (subsidiary IO Farm Bureau) does 15-yr forestry contracts (afforest, sust mngt), pools credits, sells on CCX, pays landowners (- service fee). Currently has 100 contracts/60k acres afforest in southern US.
- C – CCX C prices rising, from low of $1.70 last year to $5.70 last week (b/c all 3 pres candidates are talking about C cap&trade)
- C seq – forest industry study concludes managed forests seq 2x more C than unmanaged

- Planning – program/tool Corporate Ecosystem Services Review (WRI) - ~EMS-ish, but easier, review risk/opp/strategies from ecosys service perspective. xls/ppt/cases to help
- Planning –Ecosystem Services: A Guide for [public sector/gov] Decision Makers (WRI)- a how-to framework for taking es into account in economic/social policy decisions. Story/case study provides ex of how to imple
- Woody biomass –NV plant (designed to power prisons) halts production. Blames USFS, says can’t get supply; USFS counters: we have S, it’s just transport $$ to get to plant.
- Incen for conserve – article re: 3,600 forestland conservation easements in US, held by 16 states & 355 cons org’s (from survey of land trusts/gov easement holders w/ ~50%response rate). Failure to address shortcomings (lack/poor baseline, record keeping, professional mngt plans) = lose legitimacy.
- Incen for conserve – 1st time in 2 years farmers can sign up for CSP in these watersheds
- Info – Dovetail report, basic explan of forest opp’s in eco-markets, emph on C (16p)

- Internat PES – WWF/CARE Guatemala studies on: hydro, eco val, w’shed selection, legal framework (in Spanish). Contact
vreyes@wwfca.org
- Certification – WWF new focus on certif., how it can val env services (can you get a price premium?, actually impr biodiv?, does is impr rural incomes?). Contact Pablo.gutman@wwfus.org
- PES – new website, ex’s of PES around the world

Nutrient trading in PA - why it's not gangbusters

Summary of a 2/21 PA Senate Republican Policy Committe public hearing on Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategy

Interesting meeting with testimony from PA DEP, local gov wastewater treatment plant rep's, municipalities/builders/agricultural trade org's, env org, & EPA. Here's some of the speculation for why nutrient trading isn't gangbusters:

• it's new, it'll take time for folks to adopt (DEP)
• vauge It's not applicable to us/ we don't feel it's a viable option at this time (local gov's)
• no fair that sewer rate payers have to pay for nutr reductions, can we get state money for it (local gov's)
• uncertainty of having to buy nutr credits on annual basis (price fluctuations), uncertainty of tangible result of nutr credits (local gov)
• PT sources haven't felt the heat yet - reg's not in full force until 2010, some WWTP's haven't reached max capacity/nutrient cap yet
• there's not enough #s of P credits avail (municipalities org)
• nutr trading isn't financially competitive with WWTP upgrades (builders org, nutr trading co, env org)

Current price of nutr credits: $9/lb for N, $4/lb for P (Red Barn Trading Co.)

Audio of the meeting

Water supply

AL, FL, GA fighting over water supply – haven’t been able to come to a solution, Army Corps of Engineers steps in, says will do command-and-control solution.

New Corps/EPA wetland mitigation regulations

242 pages of fun wetland mitigation regulations. Prior to the "Final Rule", there were no official regulations, just guidance doc's. Emphasizes landscape-scale wetland mitigation in the watershed context. Specifically gives the following order of preference for mitigation type: mitigation banks, in-lieu fee programs, and then on-site mitigation. All types of mitigation have equivalent standards now - including planning requirements, financial assurances, monitoring, and ecologically-based performance standards. Future in-lieu fee programs will have to step up, but all current in-lieu fee programs will be grandfathered to previous guidance.

In the past, 60% of wetland mitigation had been done onsite. That won't be the case in the future. There is also quick mention that wetland mitigation that's done using federal $s (WRP, CREP, etc) cannot be sold --no double-dipping. BUT these federally-funded wetlands *could* double-dip and sell endangered species credits, where applicable.
Regulations
Analysis of regs
EcosystemMarketplace news story, CNN news story