FFCP By The Numbers: The Impact of 1,000 Landowners
The Family Forest Carbon Program started with a few small properties and now boasts 1,000 landowners enrolled, with a combined 143,000 acres of forests. The program’s growth has been exponential, seeing a 112% increase in enrollment over the past year. Piloted in Pennsylvania, where it now supports 237 landowners with 40,537 acres, it has made its way across 20 states with the thousandth landowner residing in Tennessee.
While our 1,000 landowners could fill 20 full-size buses, their 143,000 acres could cover Redwood National and State Forest, the city of Chicago, or 108,000 football fields. That many forestlands being sustainably managed will result in 2.7 million tonnes of additional carbon removed from the atmosphere by the completion of their contracts. That offsets the emissions of 630,000 cars, 360,000 households, or 2.7 million transatlantic roundtrip flights for one year.
Forests house 80% of the world’s biodiversity and 23 million acres of American forestland is projected to be lost by 2050. The largest ownership group of these essential resources are private landowners, stewarding 39% of U.S. forests. 47% of lands enrolled in FFCP are in areas most important to rare species and communities as well as areas that support species of greatest conservation need. American small acreage landowners play a critical role in protecting forests globally and AFF is reaching them on a scale that no one else can.
FFCP is the first and only forest carbon project to enroll 1,000 small-acreage landowners in the country. The unique program design reaches landowners that are typically outside of eligibility requirements for other carbon projects, with the minimum acreage requirement being only 30 acres, and the average enrollment size being 137 acres—the smallest in any American forest carbon project. FFCP unlocks the market for these hard-to-reach landowners, giving them the financial and technical support they need to reach their forests' full potential.
Thirty-three percent of family forest owners fall below the U.S. median income and 77% of FFCP enrollees did not have access to a forester or forest management plan prior to participating. By enrolling, they are given access to financial and technical resources they might not have had previously, allowing them to care for their land in ways they could not before. To date, we have invested over $1 million in consulting forester services for project planning and forest management plan writing.
$38 million has been committed to FFCP landowners throughout the course of their contracts, and $7 million has been delivered already, with the average amount being $310 per acre enrolled. That is equivalent to the cost of 1,500 compact tractors, 760 new trucks, or 3,800 horses. Often these payments are used for management expenses or property taxes, helping our landowners keep the land in their families and build generational wealth.
FFCP landowners are not the only ones that benefit from these financial incentives; their communities do too. These landowners also contribute critical materials to the forest products sector, a $288 billion industry that fuels rural economies and relies on family-owned forests. When these forest owners are given the resources to improve their care, they are also able to improve their wood supply.
Over 20 years, properties enrolled in our improved forest management practices will grow at least an additional 274 million board feet of timber. That means over 20 years, properties enrolled in our improved forest management (IFM) practices would grow additional timber equivalent to building a minimum of 21,747 2,000 sq ft houses. Over 30 years, the 2,400 acres enrolled in our Fields & Forests project will grow at least an additional 70 million board feet of timber equivalent to 556 2,000 sq ft houses.
Small landowners play a critical role in protecting the health and productivity of American forests, and FFCP’s success is creating the enabling conditions for them to do so by expanding market access to rural communities. We will continue to improve our scientific methodologies, implement new programs, and expand our reach until we have given every American family forest owner the opportunity to join us.