Ecosystem Markets Key to Future of America's Forests
Tom Martin, President and CEO of the American Forest Foundation, writes from the Ecosystem Markets Conference in Madison, Wisconsin.
My family has owned woodlands in Wisconsin for three generations.
I spent my childhood surrounded by 200 acres of forests of maple, ash, oak and walnut trees, playing and learning in the woods. I love it in Wisconsin.
The American Forest Foundation (AFF) is co-hosting the 4th annual Ecosystem Markets Conference here this week because we think that environmental markets are key to the future of America's forests (and Wisconsin is the home of Aldo Leopold!).
In a time of climate change, we must consider strategic management of land to ensure that America's natural places remain healthy and productive. And good land mangement takes good markets. AFF and World Resources Institute are hosting this conference so together we can continue to find ways to mitigate the cost of conservation and adaptation activities for landowners.
By monetizing the many benefits that well-managed lands provide (think clean water, clean air, wildlife habitat, recreation and good paying jobs), we can help inject the income needed in order to have better stewardship of these forests. Management costs woodland owners money every year, yet income from tradtiional forest products markets comes only once every 10, 20 or 40 years. This mismatch can drive conversion of forests to other uses, fragmentation and parcelization. Environmental markets can offer regular income that lines up better with regular costs.
We as a community have a heck of a challenge in front of us to put a price on nature to protect it, and then to bring that to scale.
In A Sand County Almanac, written in Wisconsin in 1949, Aldo Leopold wrote that the land ethic can't adequately be captured in writing. Instead, Leopold wrote, "It evolves in the minds of a thinking community."
I'm excited to be working on ecosystem markets with some of the best thinkers and leaders in this community.
Follow Tom on Twitter @TMartin923
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Photo credit: Tom Martin
