A program launched this week by Ducks Unlimited, and backed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG), aims to preserve natural green fields across the Northern Plains from being turned into cropland. The project is in partnership with the Nature Conservancy and will compensate ranchers for keeping their grassland and other pasture areas intact. An essential part of the program is a mechanism for compensating farmers by purchasing verified carbon credits from them.
The logistics behind the CIG program and how exactly the finances, totalling more than $205,000, will be distributed to buy carbon credits from landowners and farmers are still being designed. Biologist and environmental activist Randal Dell is the main architect behind the initiative. According to him, during the first stage of the program, he will work with researchers to establish how much carbon is being stored in the soil in order to calculate the number of carbon credits that can be purchased from farmers. Experts will examine soil samples and use economic models and Geographic Information Systems to calculate conversion rates. Once methodology for calculating carbon credits is in place some time next year, it will be submitted for certification by the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS). The third-party certification entity will then evaluate how effective the program is in reducing carbon emissions from the atmosphere and will issue the appropriate verified carbon credits. The credits will be allocated to ranchers and purchased with money from new grant program.
The CIG project is quite an innovative approach to preserving natural prairie landscapes instead of ravaging them for agricultural purposes. Similar conservation projects have been in place for forestry regions, and tropical forests in particular, for years. Trees have long been recognized for their carbon sequestration capacity, and offsets in the forestry sector have been taking advantage of carbon credits issued for each ton of CO2 they sequester. The sequestration capacity of grassland, on the other hand, is still in the early stages of being researched and verified. If enough in-depth analyses show that prairies are effective in fighting climate change and, as such, have more environmental value intact rather than cultivated, the investment opportunities for offset projects in the area of land preservation may increase exponentially.
Earlier this year, a team of researchers from North Carolina State University conducted a study, the results from which were published in the January issue of Nature journal. In their paper, the scholars confirmed a mechanism, through which grassland soil can sequester carbon dioxide. They found that areas with increased carbon levels in the atmosphere also had more carbon stored in the soil. Lead researcher Dr. Shuijin Hu explained:
“Our data indicate that soil microbes quickly respond to changes in carbon and nitrogen availability and may play critical roles in determining the potential of grasslands — and other terrestrial ecosystems, too — to act as a carbon sink.”
The study further concludes that when growing plants in a certain ecosystem absorb carbon dioxide at levels greater than the levels released by the decomposing plants in the same area, a natural process of carbon sequestration occurs. This natural carbon sequestration process can be explained as follows: when carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere rise, as they have been as a result of human and industrial activities, they exhilarate the growth of grassland plants. These plants draw nitrogen from the soil in the growth process. Microbes use nitrogen to decompose dead plant material. Less nitrogen means less plant material gets decomposed, releasing less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
If further research supports the theory that grassland in its natural state is more valuable to the ecosystem, this might encourage the development of more land-based carbon credit programs. It will be interesting to track the progress of the program’s design and implementation and, subsequently, observe its effectiveness. And if all goes well, landowners not only in the U.S., but also globally, may soon enjoy revenue from certified carbon credits from similar initiatives.
Wouldn’t planting crops have the same effect, if not more? They are always growing and never rotting. Obviously not from a biodiversity point of view, but from a purely carbon sequestration one?
Not really. Crops are plants — just like grassland plants. If not harvested, they do die and decompose, releasing CO2. Add to that the CO2 released during the process of cultivating the soil and planting them, then harvesting and transporting them. I think the point is that if you leave grassland pristine, you not only eliminate the carbon footprint from human activities associated with tending crops, but you also get their carbon sequestration, leading to reduction in CO2 levels.
But is that additional? The crops will simply be grown elsewhere. It’s not as if we will eat less to preserve the grasslands. Its only has real carbon offsetting value if it makes an additional impact. If the crops are not grown on grassland A, wont they just be grown on some other piece of land, negating the carbon sequestration effect of leaving that in its natural state?
It is additional. Additionality of a project doesn’t deal with the possibility of alternative carbon-producing activity will be taking place elsewhere. It deals with whether the project would have happened anyway, even in the absence of revenue from carbon credits. If carbon credits are used as an incentive to keep the grassland from being cultivated, then the conservation wouldn’t gave happened in their absence. Hence — it’s additional.
I’m not sure you understand. Carbon sequestration is at x. Grasslands are preserved rather than crops grown on them means x is maintained. But crops are grown instead on another piece of land, which becomes x – crop growing (cg). Overall global CO2 levels are still x – cg, which is happening anyway, simply in a different locale. No? Where then is the additionality? That’s called leakage and negates the additionality.
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