There are ample opportunities for conservation groups to buy up large tracts of land as timber companies divest themselves in the western United States. Instead of a patchwork of small parcels, tracts of thousands of acres can be bought with one transaction. While these opportunities are attractive to conservation groups, the expense of financing the purchase and ongoing maintenance of thousands of acres of forest becomes challenging.
According to a recent story in High Country News, conservation groups are turning to creative approaches, including selectively logging the land themselves. There’s also the potential to use the carbon offsets for this land as carbon credits. These approaches have found favor with bankers, and now more than 90,000 acres of forest in Mendocino County, California are owned by nonprofits.
