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Carbon credits, nutrient banking and wetlands off-sets are among a set of “ecological services” around which a private industry market continues to evolve. Landowners prepared to commit selected portions of their land for 10 years or longer may have an opportunity to realize income from their land in these alternative markets.
Last year, Rockbridge County Farm Bureau Federation, in partnership with Virginia Cooperative Extension, sponsored a seminar featuring agriculture economist Dr. Kurt Stevensen who explained the basics of how carbon markets currently worked and how they were anticipated to evolve.
This year, we are offering another free seminar intended to expand on the topic from last year by hosting a speaker who is currently guiding landowners into these environmental resource markets. Casey Jensen leads the Virginia company Eco-Cap and has over 10 years of experience working in nutrient banking, ecological restoration projects, and environmental consulting, and is now helping clients navigate carbon markets.
This seminar will be held Thursday, July 27, at 7 p.m. at the Virginia Horse Center’s Appomattox Mezzanine. Plan to attend if you are interested in learning more about existing and emerging markets that will pay for natural resource stewardship.
How do these natural resource commitments impact other land uses? Can we take part in these markets and still farm the land?
These markets and the landowners participating in them are having direct impacts on rural communities already. Informed rural communities can help shape the future of these markets.
Now is the time for local residents to get informed about these land use markets and understand how our land use choices can benefit our community and our planet. It is resident landowners, farmers, foresters, and loggers who know the locality best and are best situated to steward the land enrolled in these markets to achieve the desired societal and environmental impacts.
