John and Julie Christensen’s property in Corbett east of Portland is dedicated to carbon capture. (Rian Dundon/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
In March, Western agency officials, governors, business leaders, conservationists and scientists gathered in Portland for two days of workshops on “Decarbonizing the West.”
Panelists discussed different ways to leverage natural resources in the West to combat climate change while bringing in revenue. One way is to dedicate the millions of acres of Northwest forests to carbon capture and storage, generating carbon credits that can be sold to polluters to offset their emissions.
That caught the interest of Capital Chronicle reporter Alex Baumhardt, who was there.
She questioned whether it would work: Would paying forest owners not to clear-cut help slow climate change?
She wondered how much money was pouring into these deals and who would benefit and whether it was a giant pay-to-pollute scheme or would move the U.S. closer to other nations that are beginning to cap emissions and mandate that polluters pay for the damage they’re causing.
In digging, she discovered an emerging trend: About 20 forest projects recently had been entered into carbon markets, and they included forests owned by families, corporations and tribes.
“It felt like there was momentum here that I hadn’t really known until I entered that room,” Baumhardt said, referring to workshop discussions.
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She launched into a months-long investigation, aided by landing a prestigious MIT grant that supports “high-impact news” projects that explore local perspectives and priorities with climate change solutions. Baumhardt was one of five 2024 fellows.
The grant enabled her to scour the existing research, visit forests in Oregon and Washington and talk to dozens of forest managers, landowners, carbon market specialists, scientists and others.
She visited the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation in north-central Washington, traveled to a forest in Astoria and chatted with a couple who own a small forest in Corbett, about 20 miles east of Portland.
She discovered that enrolling and maintaining forests in carbon markets isn’t easy. Owners face devastating wildfires and costs for maintenance and restoration can add up. But Oregon has some of the best forests in the world for carbon storage. They’re populated by fast-growing Doug firs that can absorb more carbon than many other species and for longer – they live for 800 years.
But industrial logging has long been a much-needed source of revenue for rural communities, and companies are keen to cash in, creating a tug of war between environmental and economic concerns that erupted in the “timber wars” of the 20th century.
Baumhardt found that putting forests into carbon markets could be a middle ground and does what critics say has long been needed: It puts a price on pollution.
Reporting on this series – and hiring award-winning freelance photographer Rian Dundon to document the journey – is part of the Capital Chronicle’s commitment to high-quality journalism. You see our standout coverage everyday, but we also take the time to dive deep when stories matter.
Don’t miss this series: It’s an interesting read about an important subject that you may not have read about before.
And these won’t be the last stories we do on the carbon markets and Oregon’s forests.
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