News Summary for 7/16-7/30

Projects

- USDA Forest Service launches CC resource center website –info/tools under 1 roof for land mngrs to understand, plan & mng for CC, esp in W. Set of video presentations avail.

News

- All things Mitigation – Ecosystem Marketplace’s Mitigation Mail (7/24)
---CA local gov decided to create miti bank for ~newly listed tiger salamander, backs off when considers legal liability + need to come up with $$ to pay for hab cons plan. Impacters left to figure out HCP and miti ratios (? – hard to understand article) &title=Group_aims_to_revive_salamander_strategy
---Proposed port expansion in Portland OR gets new NIMBY argument: forget the development, make a mitigation bank (if can’t get outright protection)
---Pub empoyees for env respons (PEER) slams ME DOT’s proposal for st-wide umbrella miti bank. Criticisms: WL miti doesn’t work, they didn’t give a location for the bank, PEER wants w/in watershed/onsite miti, ME DOT isn’t qualified to restore WL.
---New 266-ac vernal pool fairy shrimp cons bank proposed in southern OR by Wildlands Inc. Neighbors (ag, viniculture) are concerned that turning off the irrigation taps in the summer for the species could impact their w supply.

- All things C – Ecosystem Marketplace’s V-Carbon News (7/29)
---Discussion about lack of/new REDD methodologies
---World Bank finances REDD readiness in 14 countries to estab emiss baselines, adopt REDD strat, design monitoring.
---NYMEX will sell options/futures for RGGI starting late-August.
---WL store 20% of world’s C & if destroy them, you release a “Carbon bomb” say scientists.
---Article tested 10 C calculators and found variation of 30k+ tons (~= to yrly emiss of 3 cars). Only 2 calc’s recc lifestyle changes to reduce C footprint.

(graphic source: Seattle Post Intellincer)


- Certif – study on PA sales of FSC/non-FSC sales shows PA got 10% incr in rev from FSC-certified.

- PES – PBS Frontline highlights Sierra Gorda PES project in Mexico – comm. paid to plant trees, hope to sell > svcs in the future.
- PES – Ecosys M’place article highlights wildlife tourism PES in Tanzania. Tourism interests in past paid just for concessions in wildlife viewing, now paying for (non-tourism) wildlife hab protect. Successful deals allow local comm. trad grazing, but prohibit ag, settlement, tree-felling.

- Instit – FTC to create “green” marketing standards/guidelines in 2009 – to prevent deceptive claims.

- Misc – judge includes loss of ecosys svcs in damages from a wildfire: “It's an important development in the law to have courts saying decisions aren't limited to the value of timber," said Sean Hecht, executive director of the UCLA Environmental Law Center. "A calculation is now allowed to look at the value of wildlife and the ecosystem.”

News Summary for 6/21-7/15

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Projects

- WQT Funding – EPA’s Targeted Watershed Grants app is due (w/ state governor approval) by Sept. 9. $4.2mill for 15-25 projects (range is $100k-$1mill) Contact: Chris Lewicki at lewicki.
Chris”at”epa.gov or (202) 566-1293. RFP is here
- WQT – EPA’s Toolkit on wqt to include info on trading w/onsite (septic), elig of State Revolving Funds for wqt – expect it out Aug 2008
- WQT – new PT-PT trading in Passaic (NJ) for P.

- Env Mkt – new ~Craig’s List for Farmers Market products in MD: www.foodtrader.org

News

- Leadership – Rob Doudrick, former lead for US Forest Service ecosys svcs group, leaves post to direct Resource Use Sciences. Al Todd, formerly [Ches Bay] Watershed Program Leader steps up as ecosys svcs lead within State and Private branch of USFS.
- Leadership – Dan Nees, formerly with WRI and the Conservation Finance Center (U MD), to head the Ches Clean Water Fund (aka Nutrient Neutral) within Forest Trends

- C/CC/Forests – June 13th issue of Science (vol 320) full of articles on forests, CC, C, etc.
---Miles & Kapos’ “Reducing GHG emiss from deforest & for degrad: global land-use implications”. Themes of ongoing REDD debate: baseline, countries that have already reduced deforest, protocols for meas/validation of reduct, how to fund REDD (grants vs. mkt-mech). When agree on REDD (prob 12/09), “a major new driver for forest conservation will be born”. Scale of funding HUGE: ballpark $1.2bill-$10bill/yr/globally (compare to ballpark current invest forest protection: $250mill-$700mill; & current world forestry exports: $39bill). Other ecosys svcs could be shafted – REDD “losers” should become new priority for conserv./sust forest mngt.
---Sukumar op ed “Forest Research for the 21st century”. Need > sci for use in CC adapt; > sci to inform sust harvesting in tropics.
---Canadell & Raupach “Managing Forests for CC Miti”. Reviews global estimates of reduced emiss (Pg C) of 4 forestry strat: reforest, incr C density, incr use of forest products, REDD. Also touches on: risk, biophys feedbacks, unintended conseq of lrg land-use change, etc.

- C - RGGI begins auctioning permits Sept 25

- All things C – Ecosystem Marketplace’s V-Carbon Mail (6/27)
---Sir Nicholas Stern’s co IdeaCarbon will rate C credits like bond ratings (AAA -> D)
---Gold Standard-certified C projects can get C insur at reduced rate via company CarbonRe
--- Australia & Indonesia signed Forest C agreement for REDD activities

- REDD – Ecosys M’place releases REDD primer

- C biz – study analyzed 16 major consult firms and says ICF is tops for C work. BTW – ICF is looking to hire a Senior Assoc in their Env Markets group in DC.
- C biz - …but maybe Richard Branson will crash the C consultancy party? w/ new eco-consult Virgin Green Owls
- C biz – Conserv International expanding their Forest C Markets work: hiring Advisor in DC area
(hat tip to ecorazzi for the Gore/Branson love)

- Instit – Ecosys M’place has primer on C registries – breaks it down to emissions tracking registries (“measuring the beans”) and C credit accounting registries (“tracking the trades”). Great overview.
- Instit – Vol C Standard Assoc (VCS) gives blessing to 4 (accounting) registries: APX, Caisee des Depots, Bank of NY and TZ1

- CC – new book “The Atlas of CC: Mapping the World’s Greatest Challenge” – reviewer in Cons Bio says it’s a great “intro and general ref for people involved in policy at any level”. Wish Amazon had sample pages. (Parmesan, 2008, Cons Bio, Vol 22, No. 3).

- All things Mitigation – Ecosystem Marketplace’s Mitigation Mail (7/3)
---Env Mkt – Ecosystem Marketplace releases “the Matrix: Mapping Ecosystem Service Markets” is living database/spreadsheet/info resource summarizes globally env svc mkts (mkt description, size/volume of trades, players, emerging issues, env and dev world impact)
---WQT – Ecosys M’place article highlights momentum of Katoomba mtg for Ches Bay players, emph on figuring out how to help wqt work regionally, Nutrient Neutral Fund idea funded by CIG grant – will follow ex of C neutral
---DU buys easements on prairie potholes, gives easement to FWS, keeps right to sell C & plan to use proceeds to fund restor in plains states. Considering rights to sell wq credits or endangered species miti (esp migratory bird hab)
---TIMO in the St Johns water mngt district (FL) gives up dev rights on ½ its land to create WL bank of 450+ credits. Credits in area are selling for $30k-$160K
---Alberta Canada considering starting oil sands biodiv offset requirements (sounds like 1:1 ratio for preservation or restoration)
---VA broken dam (w/lowered lake levels/prop values) could be new WL miti bank if restore
---BushTender in Australia gets $2.7mill more to add 6kha of restor on priv land (10kha already completed)

- WL Miti – Robertson & Hayden, 2008 (Cons Bio Vol 22, No 3) conduct complete survey of entrepreneurial bank transactions in Chi ACOE District from 94-02. Found temporal loss of WL (allowable in regs, wch release credits for sale in phases based 1st on site-protection & then ecolog perform measures). WL miti an average of 16 mi away from WL loss (allowable in regs). Meets no net loss goal. Discussed regulatory uncertainty – new local laws tht create > localized areas in wch WL miti must occur.
- Str Miti – “Natural Channel Design”, Rosgen’s method of str restor, has tete-a-tete in JAWRA betw authors asking for peer-review (/peer-rev citations) of meth and the creator of the meth (Rosgen 2008, JAWRA, Vol 44, No. 3; Simon et al 2008, JAWRA, Vol 44, No. 3)

- Incen – EDF working w/ state/fed funds to pay farmers in W lake Erie to impr wq & wildlife hab.

- Cons Finance – HUGE TNC/TPL deal to buy priv for industry land (Plum Creek) in MO adjacent to Nat Forests (lands go to Forest Service). $510 mill for 500 sq miles - $ is ½ from donations, ½ from tax credits. Allows some sust forestry/cert logging.

- Stacking – Plantinga et al. 2008 (forthcoming) Efficiency of Incentives to Jointly Increase Carbon Sequestration and Species Conservation on a Landscape. NSF-funded study says you can’t get both C & biodiv. You can maximize species when you restore rare hab; you max C when you restore forests.
- Stacking – Bekessy & Wintle argue in Cons Bio (vol 22, No 3) that current Kyoto C scheme should be changed to make C + biodiv > competitive to C-only. Implied/stated arguments: a C investor will want C + biodiv b/c of positive PR and investment risk-spreading, there is/will be a mkt for biodiv, regulated C mkt should be for > than C.

- Biofuels – Groom et al. 2008 (Cons Bio Vol 22, No 3) argue biofuels should be certified biodiv-friendly – should be sust & small footprint, maintain native/essential food crop habitats, be at least net C neutral.

- Tools – USGS to provide Landsat for free (1972-present)
- Tools – Kalacska et al. 2008 (Journal of Env Mngt, vol 88). Q: are land cover maps accurate enough to use as baseline forest cover (for CDM)? A: no – low accuracies (in Costa Rica, Mex) – nat level maps overest for cover by counting evergr veg, but underest deciduous forest in > local maps.
- Tools – Heinz Center completes 2008 update of measure/monitor project State of the Nation’s Ecosystems 2008, wch tracks/reports on 68 indicators. They hope feds will take over project. Stokstad, Science vol 320, p. 1575.
- Tools – re: cons prioritiz assessments: of published assess papers, 2/3rds never get imple (usu b/c researcher doesn’t plan on imple)- ouch. Article suggests: rewarding academics for “doing”, linking research to q’s of practitioners, etc. Knight et al. 2008, Conservation Biology vol 22, No. 3.

- PES – research on effectiveness of payments (that went to dev projects in communities) to stop illegal logging in a nat park in Indo had no effect on reduced deforest (paired study) - ouch. Linkie et al. 2008, Science, Vol 22, No 3.
- PES – Forest Trends/Katoomba/UNEP release primer on getting started in PES: ID’ing opp’s and buyers, considering instit/tech capacity & access, making & imple a PES agreement
- PES – USFS PNW research station pub synthesizes research work on ecosys svcs, summaries for how FS can integrate into mngt

- Misc – goats provide weed mngt service, bats (bat boxes) provide pest-reduction services in San Jose, CA. Pricey (~$700/acre goats, $145/box), *but* nonmkt val’s: fire fuel reduction, “wildlife viewing” val, edu.

- Nonmarket Val – Martin-Lopez et al 2008 (Cons Bio Vol 22, No 3) do meta-analysis of WTP for biodiversity val studies (single species only) and find factors that contribute to WTP: anthropomorphic (cuteness), anthropocentric (how useful they are – hunt, fish, wildlife view). Goldmine of 60 WTP values in table on p.628-629.
- Nonmarket Val – National Res Council study on forests and water conclude tht most important output of forests is water.
- Nonmarket Val – Gund Instit+USFS PNW research doing val (bene transfer) for multi (23) ecosys svcs in watershed near Seattle (p.5)

News Summary for 6/4-6/20

...just catching up, folks. Another installment coming soon.

Meetings / Seminars
- 5/14-16 – CCAR’s 6th Annual Meeting – all you could ever want to know about CCAR. Summaries and presentations here
---CCAR explains Climate Action Reserve. Screenshots and step-by-step how-to incl in ppt
---Nice ppt from PG&E about utility users’ vol C offset program (“by 12/2009, PG&E will contract for at least 1.5 million tons”). This is the program that had a recent RFP out (7/2) for CCAR-standard projects.
- 6/9-6/10 - 12th Global Katoomba Meeting – 6/9 and 6/10 summaries below
- 6/11-6/12 - Private Katoomba Meeting on the Chesapeake Bay – day summaries below
- 6/2008, Brazil - 12th Internat Congress on Env Law of IUCN – focused on trends in imple of PES in Americas (best practices, legal/instit frameworks). Contact: Rodrigo Martinez usdecons9(“at”)oas.org (Organiz of Amer States’ Dept of Sust Dev).

Projects
- Market-based CIG Grants (Ches Bay grants, national grants)
---Ches Nutrient Neutral Fund (Ches Bay Foundation)
---the Bay Bank (Pinchot Institute)
---Gopher Tortoise Habitat Credit Bank in GA and AL (Amer Forest Foundation)
---Mkt-based rangeland restor & crit w’life hab in Sagebrush (Sagebrush Foundation et al)
---PES in FL ranchlands, from pilot to program operation (WWF)
---C Credit mkt infra (Couer d’Alene Tribe)
---Mkt-based incen to reduce sedi from ag lands, etc. (Kansas St U)
---Develop/use a modified NTT tool for WQT (Tarleton St U, MD)
---Mkt infra for WQT/etc in Upper Miss (Minnesota River Basin, Joint Powers Board)
---Facilitating NIFP to C offset mkts (George McKinley)

- WQT Funding – EPA’s Targeted Watershed Grants app is due (w/ state governor approval) by Sept. 9. RFP is here

- Corp Sustain – World Bus Council on Sust Dev’s class of 2008 Future Leaders Team are focusing on ecosystem services & how bus depend on; how to ID opp’s and miti risks; to use WRI’s Ecosystem Services Review (ESR) methodology. Contact: Katherine Madden, WBCSD madden("at")wbcsd.org

News
- C and Institutions – May 2008 USDA Forest Service memo guides FS leaders re: reforestation/C projects. Says FS is not currently involved in any selling/trading of C offsets (C *credit* projects – distinction here is using for CCX or future regulations). FS only has 3 current C *offset* projects with National Forest Foundation, consider these as demo projects for using forest mngt in a CC miti strategy (new projects can only be approved on case-by-case basis). FS can partner with folks who advertise *general* C claims or benefits from donations for reforestation but these can’t be advertised like “offset your GHG” or ”go C neutral”.

- C – PG&E offsets Dem party nat convention w/offsets from Garcia River Forest (CF project)
- All things C - Ecosystem V-Carbon News (6/11)
---Lieberman-Warner cap & trade bill didn’t get enough votes
---1st project registered/verified under CA Forest Protocols, Pacific Forest Trust’s Van Eck forest in Humboldt Co. CA, offering VERs
---2 CA bills proposed to regulate OTC C

- CC – USDA Forest Service factsheet “Climate Change and Water: Perspectives from the Forest Service”

- Instit – Doug Lashley (CEO Greenvest) op-ed: support > efficient multi-cred mkt in Ches Bay
- Env Mkts –DoD-contracted(?) 2007 doc by Idaho Nat’l Lab – says DoD will likely be largest buyer/seller of wq credits; screenshots of hypothetical multi-cred mkt
- Env Mkt info – new blog related to env markets by EcoAsset Markets

- Tools – a little 411 on the company APX: did CCAR’s “web-based platform and account management tool for the registration, serialization, tracking, and retirement of GHG offsets for the Climate Action Reserve”. Did work in renew NRG mkts, Gold Standard VER registry. Based in Santa Clara, CA with brand-new office in DC (to get cozy with CC legislation). 2 key leaders from Marsh, Inc. (global risk mngt & insur). Goldman Sachs is a minority equity investor.

- Certif – SFI has web-based survey to collect/compile suggestions/rationale for changes to SFI standard

News Summary for 5/3-5/16

Meetings / Seminars
- 5/7-9 - 11th Annual National Mitigation & Ecosystem Banking Conference – day summaries for May 9th, May 8th, and May 7th

Projects
- Mapping – National Geographic/NatureServe’s LandScope, to be launched 2008, brings maps/data/photos/info about conserved/priority cons/planning areas, trends, etc. for US/states together to inform/target efforts on the part of land trusts/st & local gov/private landowners/etc.
- Mapping – Trust for Public Land launches Conservation Almanac--lists data (1998-2005) about conserved areas in each st, acres acquired, $s spent, LandVote ballot measures, profile of state policy/conserv programs. Helpful for st/regional cons stats.

- Markets – AgTrader, a Craig’s List for MD farmers launched

News

- CC – US FWS lists Polar Bear as threatened due to loss of habitat (sea ice), says won’t use listing to force regulatory action

- All things C – Ecosystem Marketplace’s V-Carbon Mail (5/2/08)
---CCAR launches Climate Action Reserve that provides standardized protocols for C projects, info on projects, and tracks credits.
---Bush - proposal of zero emissions growth by 2025
---Canada and Greece out of compliance w/Kyoto can’t trade in EU C market until they get their act together
---Sir Nicholas Stern (of Stern report fame in ’07) says he goofed and to minimize dangerous risks of CC, need to reduce emiss by 50% for world and 90% for US

- C - Ecosys M’place releases 2007 State of the Voluntary C Market. Interesting stats:
---65 mill tonnes of C credit transactions in vol mkt [42mill from OTC mkt, 23 from CCX transactions]
---ave pr of credit went from $4.10->$6.10/tonne from 06 to 07
---OTC mkt tripled to 42 mill tonnes C credit transactions (val of $258mill in 07)
---dominant projects in OTC: NRG efficiency, renew NRG, methane, forestry/land projects

- WQT – summary of MD’s newish (4/18/2008) PT-PT trading policy

- Leadership – TNC appoints Goldman Sachs’ green guru Mark Tercek as new president/CEO

- PES - Special Issue on PES in Developing and Developed Countries – May 2008 Ecological Economics, 65.4. Sven Wunder, Stefanie Engel and Stefano Pagiola (ed).

- Nonmarket val – UFORE analysis of Houston’s regional forests: store $721mill worth of C, gen $456mill of env bene/yr, save $131mill in res NRG costs.
- Nonmarket val – WSJ Natural Cap blog discusses bene-cost analysis for env policy; crux of debate – whether economists value future generations’ benefits enough (via disc rates)