Role of Forestry in Carbon Sequestration in the County

Sonoma County’s forest sector can play a significant role in the County’s effort to minimize its climate impacts.  Forests play a unique role in climate change, as they can be a source of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions as well as a CO₂ reservoir.  Forests naturally absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere and store it as carbon in their biomass (e.g., branches, trunk, roots etc.).  However, when forests are disturbed through activities such as deforestation and harvest, their carbon stocks are released as CO₂ back into the atmosphere both immediately and over time.  On a global level, forests are responsible for at least 20% of the world’s CO₂ emissions – largely due to forest loss.[1]

 Sonoma County, similar to the global arena, is also losing its forestland. Between 1990 and 1997, the County lost 9,505 acres of its hardwood rangelands (oak woodlands) to vineyard conversions.[2]  Sonoma County has lost at least 20% of its original conifer forests to other uses, with the most significant conversion occurring between1850 and 1940.  The majority of the County’s old growth forests have been logged, which means the significant carbon stores that those forests once held have also been lost.[3]  While current statistics indicate fewer acreage of timberland loss in more recent times,[4] the pending conversion of 1,900 acres of timberland to vineyards by Premier Pacific Vineyards indicates that conversion of the County’s softwood forests still occurs and is still a threat. 

This pressure of forest loss, and the concurrent loss of forest-based climate benefits, will continue as the drivers of forest loss continue.  The root causes of forest loss are a confluence of factors that include, but are not limited to, increasing management costs, rising real estate values, global competition, population pressure and high turnover of corporate and family forest ownership.  These factors contribute to forestland fragmentation and parcelization, which is the one-way path to conversion.  As these forests are lost to non-forest uses, their existing climate benefits, as well as their future capacity to achieve climate benefits are lost for the long-term, not to mention their other attendant benefits of water quality, habitat and biodiversity. 

 While it is clear that the forest sector is part of the climate change problem, it can also be a part of the solution – at not only the global level, but the local level as well.  Through forest conservation, restoration and changes in forest management, CO₂ emitted from Sonoma County’s forests can be minimized, existing forest carbon stocks can be maintained and additional CO₂ emissions can be absorbed from the atmosphere and stored in its forestland.  These activities could create significant climate benefits and would also achieve other co-benefits that the public values, such as the enhancement and protection of species habitat, water quality, biodiversity, recreation and local timber economies. 

 With roughly 90% of land in Sonoma County under private ownership, incentives are needed to encourage forest landowners to manage and protect their forestlands to maintain and achieve their climate benefits.  In addition, there must be a process by which the climate benefits of forests can be measured and monitored.  California has already developed a system by which climate impacts of forestland can be measured at the landowner level, the California Climate Action Registry’s (the Registry) Forest Protocols.  These Protocols provide detailed and practical guidance to forest landowners regarding how they can achieve and register forest-based GHG emission reductions through conservation (i.e., protection from conversion), reforestation and conservation-based forest management. 

 These protocols also require forestlands registered with the Registry to be secured with perpetual conservation easements.  These easements dedicate the land to permanent forest use, securing the forest’s climate benefits for the long-term.  As the conservation easement may be sold or donated (providing an income tax benefit), the forest landowner is offered a financial incentive to undertake the actions necessary to dedicate the property to climate benefits and register with the Registry. 

While easements can provide a financial incentive to Sonoma County forest landowners to promote and protect the climate benefits of their forests, additional incentives are also needed to compete with rising opportunity costs.  With this in mind, the following are recommendations that Sonoma County can pursue to achieve its greenhouse gas emission reduction goals utilizing its forest sector:

• Sonoma County can facilitate the sale of GHG emission reductions from private forestlands in Sonoma County

 The County, in its effort to achieve net zero GHG emissions or even go below net zero, could purchase some of its emission reductions from private forestlands in the County or encourage private entities in the County to reduce their GHG emissions by purchasing a percentage of their GHG reductions from private forest landowners, so long as the reductions met the requirements of the Registry. 

• Require the creation of a CO₂ mitigation fund financed by developers for any new developments.

As the County incorporates directives in the General Plan and/or zoning ordinances to minimize or eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, it can include requirements to reduce GHG impacts, at least in part, through the purchase of greenhouse gas emission reductions from private forestlands.  Developers could purchase the reductions from forest landowners directly or contribute money to a fund created by the County that would finance forest-based greenhouse gas reductions in the County. 

• Initiate planning with state and federal agencies to develop policies that facilitate forest activities in the County that achieve greenhouse gas reductions

 While the County can create its own framework for GHG reductions within the County, it can also work with state and federal agencies to develop incentives for forest landowners at the state and federal level that would create forest-based climate benefits within the County.