Carbon Credits Finance New Approach to Large-Scale Conservation

Unprecedented Partnership Conserves Prairie Habitat Through Direct Payments to Landowners

MEMPHIS, Tenn., November 20, 2007 – It pays to conserve habitat these days. Literally. In an unprecedented conservation agreement, Ducks Unlimited, Equator Environmental, LLC and New Forests Inc. are helping landowners conserve grasslands and store carbon on their property – and make money doing it.

“This is a totally novel approach to habitat conservation,” said Jim Ringelman, Ducks Unlimited’s Director of Conservation Programs in the Great Plains. “DU’s highest priority is protecting the grasslands of the Prairie Pothole Region from destruction, and one way we do that is through conservation easements. When landowners agree to an easement that prohibits plowing that land, they’re also ensuring that the carbon in that soil won’t be released. So, we thought ‘What if DU could offer landowners money for the conservation easement, and money for the carbon credits on their land.”

It sounds complicated, but according to Dan Spethmann, Manager of Investment Programs for New Forests, it’s not.

“On the prairies of North and South Dakota, millions of acres of grassland plants are storing, or ‘sequestering,’ a huge reserve of soil carbon. If that land is plowed, the soil carbon is exposed to oxygen, decomposed and released as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas contributing to global warming. In the process, vital waterfowl breeding habitat is destroyed,” says Spethmann.

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