Northern Forest Investment Zone

Investment Zone partner Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences is developing a  "Forest Carbon Forecaster."

 

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In 2009, The Center secured designation for the Northern Forest as one of three “Forest Investment Zones” in the country. Through this ambitious initiative, The Center is leading or coordinating projects with partner organizations to increase private investment, develop use of community-scale biomass, advance innovation in wood-product manufacturing, encourage community forests and forestry, and help landowners realize economic return for the environmental services their land provides.

   Partners

   Sampling of Projects

The Center launched the Investment Zone Initiative with funding from the U.S. Endowment for Forestry & Communities. Core partners in the initiative include:

  • Biomass Energy Resource Center
  • Coastal Enterprises, Inc.
  • Forest Guild
  • Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences
  • Northern Forest Center
  • Sustainable Forest Futures
  • Community Forest Collaborative
    (comprised of The Center, Sustainable Forest Futures, Quebec-Labrador Foundation and the Trust for Public Land)

Projects underway by Forest Investement Zone partners include:

  • Providing technical assistance to advance innovation among secondary wood products manufacturers;
  • Applying a new “Forest Carbon Forecaster” tool to help landowners evaluate opportunities to sell carbon credits from their land;
  • Helping community forest managers secure new financial and community benefits from their lands;
  • Piloting a market based system of payments for watershed services in western Maine and the Upper Connecticut River watershed; and
  • Providing technical assistance to communities interested in implementing community-scale biomass energy projects.

 

Alongside these individual projects, the Investment Zone partners are focusing resources in the Androscoggin Valley-Mahoosuc region on the Maine-New Hampshire border as a pilot site for testing the integrated development of forest income streams and related capacity building.