Our guest blogger, Doug Parsons from Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, offers up some provocative questions on the topic of forest carbon credits and state wildlife action plans. Let’s get a dialogue going.

“As state wildlife agencies struggle to find match for their state wildlife grant projects, we should consider the emerging carbon markets as an additional source of match. For example, many states use State Wildlife Grant funds for projects that restore habitats, in the process, this restoration is sequestering carbon. In Florida, we are currently funding Longleaf pine restoration to restore critical Sandhill habitat. Keep in mind, that sequestered carbon has a dollar value: why can’t we count that as match for the grant?

We don’t want to get in the business of helping private or public entities generate a profit directly from a State Wildlife Program grant, but if the project is structured appropriately, those carbon credits generated through these projects can be counted as overall project funding. It would be agreed in any contract that any money generated through the sale of carbon credits, as a direct result of the grant funding, would be used to further the overall goals of that particular project, e.g., site maintenance, additional tree plantings, burning, etc. Basically, this approach reinvests any carbon money generated back into the same project. It would be valuable if the Fish and Wildlife Service allowed this match flexibility, since generating 50/50 match is always a challenge for the states, especially in lean budget times.

So two questions: 1) Does anyone know if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service allows this? And 2) if so, are there any states currently using carbon credits, in any form, as match for their State Wildlife Program grants?”