Informing decision making
Every day, federal, state and local public agencies make decisions that affect the long-term capacity of US forestlands to sequester and store carbon and protect rural communities from wildfires, floods, droughts and other threats from climate change. The Forest Carbon Coalition monitors key decisions and responds with our collective expertise to encourage climate smart choices. At the local level, we encourage land use decisions that protect forests from urban sprawl. At the state level, we engage with state foresters and other stakeholders to modernize forest practices laws and regulations. At the federal level we monitor and participate in Forest Service and BLM planning and regulatory processes to ensure that carbon storage and climate change adaptation are at the front and center of issues considered. Work samples are labeled as “comments” in the resources table below.
Policy initiatives
Transforming management of US forestlands will require multiple interventions by federal, state, and local governments. These may include measures to reduce demand for conventional wood products that stimulate large carbon emissions, encourage investment in climate smart forestland companies, modernize forest practices laws and regulations, establish forest carbon reserves on public lands, redirect harmful logging subsidies and establish new ownership criteria for corporate held lands. The Forest Carbon Coalition works with partners to take advantage of opportunities to advance these measures through forest and land use planning processes, legislation, changes in rules and regulations and executive actions. See “policy initiatives” in the resources table below for samples of what we and our partners are working on.
Synthesizing and disseminating the science
As new research comes available, Forest Carbon Coalition reviews what it has to say and evaluates what its implications are for public policy. We then add succinct summaries and make them available to our members, decision makers, and the public through the science overview pages on this site. Over the past few years, the volume of research being published by universities, think tanks, government agencies and non-governmental organizations is rapidly growing and so our goal is to extract the most important data and findings that directly support our goals and programs. We also highlight new research that may prompt us to revise our approach. Please click here to jump to our science overview pages.