{"id":40225,"date":"2024-03-02T16:12:25","date_gmt":"2024-03-02T21:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.greenmoney.com\/2025\/?p=40225"},"modified":"2024-03-05T23:57:23","modified_gmt":"2024-03-06T04:57:23","slug":"climate-smart-forestry-from-niche-to-mainstream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.greenmoney.com\/2025\/climate-smart-forestry-from-niche-to-mainstream\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate-Smart Forestry: From Niche to Mainstream"},"content":{"rendered":"
>> Back to March 2024 Issue<\/a><\/div>\n
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Above: Scotts River Headwaters, Siskiyou County, CA. Photo courtesy of EFM<\/h5>\n

\"Bettina<\/a>EFM, the forestland investment company I co-founded, is celebrating its 20-year anniversary next year.<\/b> And yet, the premise upon which we started EFM \u2013 that commercial forests could and should be valued and managed for the full range of goods and services they produce \u2013 timber, carbon, biodiversity, water provision, recreation, scenic values, tribal and indigenous values and rural livelihoods \u2013 is as enduring and critical today as it was twenty years ago. In many ways, it is more so, because the world has caught up with the critical truth that healthy, intact and functioning ecosystems \u2013 particularly forests – are fundamental to the earth\u2019s life support system at the very moment that these ecosystems are unraveling due to climate change and human pressure.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Moreover, there is broad recognition that any hope we have on limiting global temperature rise to 2 degrees celsius is predicated on protecting and expanding the capacity of forests (and other natural systems) to store carbon and enhance resilience in the face of climatic change, such as increased fire incidence. As the world decarbonizes, expanding the capacity of forests, grasslands and oceans to sequester and store carbon is estimated to provide 37% of needed emission reductions in the next decade (Griscom et al 2017).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Today EFM has over $250M of assets and 150,000 acres of forestland under management and advises clients globally on investments in natural climate solutions. We have established three co-mingled forest investment funds and are launching our fourth fund, along with expanding our advisory work on natural climate solutions. Our approach is to purchase forests in ecologically significant landscapes, restore them to greater productivity and health, and lock in the improvements through conservation easements, carbon contracts, habitat banks, and selective sales to tribal and community entities. These strategies provide cash flow while the forest continues to grow. As timber inventory builds, the forest can resume producing timber without significantly compromising biodiversity, water quality, and habitat by using harvesting techniques like thinning and variable retention harvests that retain large trees in the landscape and improve species diversity and structural complexity. Meanwhile, financial returns are diversified and strengthened by monetizing not just timber but emerging ecosystem service markets.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Forest<\/a>
A recently thinned EFM forest property on the Olympic Peninsula. Thinning removes trees that are not growing well or are too close to their neighbors, thus providing greater light and nutrients to the remaining trees. It also allows selection of desirable species and wildlife trees and shapes the future forest.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I came to my lifelong fascination with the natural world on a visit to the Galapagos when I was 14. In this iconic place of adaptation and speciation, which inspired Darwin and countless others, the world, and the forces that drive it, began to make sense to me as well. I went on to study Biology and then earned an MBA at the University of Chicago. While the latter taught me the language of finance, I have never seen anything in the business world that competes with the magnificence and sophistication of the survival, collaboration, and competitive strategies exhibited by natural systems on display in that first visit to the Galapagos. All that to say the obvious: that Nature, having tested strategies over millennia, is our best teacher on what works best in an ecosystem, and we ignore her lessons at our peril. EFM\u2019s approach is rooted in understanding those natural forces and working with them to manage forests and other ecosystems for resilience and enduring economic and social value.<\/span><\/p>\n

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