What Can I Do With My Forest During a LandYield Carbon Project?

Forest owners participating in a LandYield carbon project agree to a 40-year term of deferring commercial harvests. However, this commitment won’t prevent family landowners from enjoying other activities on the land while they let their timber grow. In fact, most pastimes that family forest owners cherish are allowed – and may even be enriched by the healthy and mature growth of the forest.

What Am I Allowed To Do With My Forest When Participating in LandYield?

LandYield allows many valued activities to continue without interruption, including:

• Family Hiking and Fishing: Enjoy pastoral activities and spend time with your family on the land while you watch it continue to grow and thrive.

• Promote Ecotourism: Locales of interest, natural beauty or cultural importance within the area of the carbon project site remain fully accessible for tourism, recreation, or religious visits.

• Collect Personal Firewood: Landowners may continue to cut or collect firewood for personal use or to help clean and maintain the forest’s health.

• Conduct Salvage Harvesting: You may be able to engage in salvage harvesting after a disturbance such as a pest, a forest fire, a storm, or a similar natural phenomenon.

• Gather Non-Timber Products: Forests produce numerous medicinal, culinary, and agricultural products beyond timber. Agroforestry products from pine straw to fungi, maple syrup, herbs, fruits, sap, tubers, and more can all be gathered without harvesting timber.

• Create Small Food Plots For Wildlife: You may clear small areas and plant them with annual grains or legumes (such as corn, oats, sunflowers, clover, or alfalfa) to provide food and cover for wildlife.

• Install Small Clearings For Camping: Landowners are permitted to create small clearings for camping, cabins, or homesites. Note that clearing trees in this way may have an impact on carbon payments over time.

• Create New Hunting Stands: Craft free-standing hunting blinds or platforms mounted on trees during your carbon project to enjoy sport in a thriving wildlife habitat.

• Lease Rights For Hunting, Camping, or Fishing: Allowing these activities on your land can create an ongoing source of revenue from the forest without harvesting any timber.

• Climate-Smart Forest Management: Because the health of the forest is of great importance to carbon credit projects, it’s okay to engage in preventative silvicultural treatments and thinning to manage pest and disease outbreaks or promote additional healthy growth.

These and any other personal, recreational, or commercial activities not affecting the timber can continue in the absence of commercial harvests. If you have any questions about landowner obligations, check the terms of the contract for your LandYield carbon credit project or get in touch with our team.

Can I Sell, Transfer, Or Mortgage My Enrolled Forest?

Financial interactions involving enrolled lands are allowed while in the program. Because LandYield holds certain rights relative to the timber, LandYield must approve any loans involving the enrolled properties as collateral. Lenders would need to acknowledge LandYields rights and interests.

Selling to a new landowner is allowed as long as the new landowner qualifies and agrees to all of the obligations of your LandYield carbon credit project. If the buyer won’t agree, you can still sell, but there will be penalties for removing the forest from the program.

What Is Not Allowed While My Forest Is Participating in LandYield?

The most important thing is that the timber must be left standing rather than being harvested. Commercial timber harvests are prohibited under the Small, Non-Industrial Private Forestlands methodology for the first 20 years of the carbon project. 

Your contract agreement will have additional terms and specifics on activities that are prohibited in order to protect the health of your timber. For instance, landowners are not permitted to flood or drain forest areas during the project term.

Do the Rules Stay the Same For 40 Years?

The 40-year commitment is a requirement of all carbon projects that use the American Carbon Registry’s published standards and ensures long-term climate mitigation. The 40-year structure is separated into two distinct periods:

The First 20 Years: The “Crediting Period”

More restrictions apply during the first two decades of LandYield carbon capture and storage projects. This is the period in which regular payments are made to you in return for carbon credits generated by your land, so long as there are no harvests and all other requirements are met.

If landowners would like to extend this period, it’s possible to agree to another 20-year harvest deferral agreement to continue receiving these payments after the first period is over.

The Second 20 Years: The “Maintenance Period”

Unless you’ve extended your harvest deferral, no credits will be issued during the final 20 years of the agreement period. However, you will now be allowed to engage in sustainable harvesting of growth that accrues from years 21-40. These activities would need to be monitored and reported.

All LandYield projects use the approved American Carbon Registry (ACR) methodology for Small, Non-industrial Forestlands. Following the ACR’s 40-year standard lends longevity, quality, and credibility to all credits generated by carbon project developers. All credits verified by the ACR will be third-party vetted and high-integrity – exactly the sort that Fortune 500 companies trust for use towards their Net Zero goals.

You can learn more about how ACR sets the bar for credit quality here or get in touch with LandYield today to get started.