Louisiana hardwood forests part of push to combat climate change. Here's how.

Cakey Worthington pulled the measuring tape from the spool hanging on her hip and local forestry consultant Ryan Manuel helped her tightly cinch the metal strip around the trunk of a water oak labelled "6" in yellow spray paint.

Once the metal strip had been pulled fully around the trunk at the designated height, Worthington read out the measurement from the special tape, which calculates the diameter of imperfectly circular tree trunks.

Tree "6" was 24.4 inches, Worthington announced, representing a little over an inch of diameter growth in the past two years since the last measurement at the same spot on the tree.

"It's got a healthy growing site. It's getting bigger. It's a nice big tree. It's got a lot of timber value for us and also stores a lot of carbon," said Worthington, vice president of carbon operations for Aurora Sustainable Lands.

Worthington, a trained forester, was demonstrating one of the steps to quantify carbon storage in about 100,000 acres of recently purchased bottomland hardwood forests in the upper Atchafalaya Basin. 

Her employer, Aurora Sustainable Lands, has a "carbon first" strategy for forest management, trading an emphasis on timber production along with marketing the trees' natural ability to suck carbon from the atmosphere as a part of photosynthesis and store it for decades in their wood. 

A North Carolina-based startup less than three years old, the company plans to shift practices in the forests. The changes create net additions in the natural carbon storage of the forests, company officials say, and establish a basis to sell carbon credits to companies seeking to offset their impact on global climate change.

Timber-cutting cycles are lengthened to accommodate 40-year carbon credit contracts, extending the life of the trees and allowing them to grow and store more carbon. When the trees are cut, the timber is sold for long-term uses that continue to hold the carbon, like furniture.

"So, our goal is kind of two main things: We grow our trees more than we cut them across the entire landscape and, when we do management activities, we're doing things with climate in mind," Worthington said.

Aurora says it won't cut some areas, including a more than 200-year-old cypress swamp in a flooded slough several miles north of Melville, and its management practices will also boost wildland character.  

In addition to hunting leases, the lands are enrolled in state programs to manage deer and black bear populations.

'A good fit'?

Aurora is a joint venture of Oak Hill Advisors, other Wall Street financial firms and a new carbon credit marketing company, Anew Climate.

In late 2022, the company agreed to spend $1.8 billion to buy 1.7 million acres of industrial timberland across the eastern United States, including the Louisiana lands, the company said.

At the time, observers and news organizations, like The Wall Street Journal, called the purchase of the former The Forestland Group properties one of the biggest bets so far on growing voluntary markets to sell carbon credits.

With many large companies setting ambitious goals to have a net neutral effect on climate change by 2050 or earlier, financial firms see the markets, both voluntary and regulatory, as a big investment opportunity.

Last year, Morgan Stanley, a New York investment bank and financial services company, predicted the global voluntary carbon credit market could rise from $2 billion to $250 billion by 2050.

Aurora officials said their business model essentially inverts the traditional timber company's revenue structure by counting on more than 80% of its revenue to come from carbon credits and the rest in timber sales.

Aurora sold more than $100 million in credits in 2023, though none from its Louisiana properties yet, which are still in development.

"We expect our 1.7 million acres of eastern U.S. forest to annually yield additional offsets worth between $60 million and $150 million, market depending," company officials said in a statement.

Aurora's move into Louisiana hasn't been widely known locally. State forestry and trade group officials didn't know about the company and its purchase in south-central Louisiana when contacted earlier this month.

But some observers of the state's $11 billion timber industry say other landowners are starting to take their own early steps into carbon credits.

Buck Vandersteen, executive director of the Louisiana Forestry Association, said carbon credits are generally a good fit for existing sustainable forestry practices but any decision to sell the credits competes against other market opportunities.

"It has its place in the state. In areas where there are poor markets, it's a very good fit because it provides that landowner some return on their investments," Vandersteen said.

Vic Blanchard is forestry and wildlife manager for A. Wilbert's Sons LLC, a nearly 140-year-old, family-owned agricultural operation based in Plaquemine.

He said he thinks a lot of landowners in Louisiana are looking at carbon credits as an option as his company is for its 100,200 acres of timberland.

"We explore every possibility in the management of our property. Carbon markets are one of many," Blanchard said.

The 40-year cycle of the voluntary credits already fits with A. Wilbert's Sons timber management plans, which are on a 60-year timeframe, and could help fill a gap in the marketplace. 

Blanchard noted the continued loss of lumber mills over the past 20 years, including an important production line at the Georgia-Pacific mill in Port Hudson several years ago. The losses have hurt hardwood markets in the state, particularly for lower value pulp wood, he said.

Some small- and medium-sized landowners who don't have the size of Aurora or A. Wilbert's Sons are trying a different tack. 

Based in Conway, Arkansas, and started in 2021, NativState aggregates smaller properties of as little as 40 acres and helps landowners with the expertise to access the carbon credit market through the same registry as Aurora.

Mark Fortune, NativState's marketing vice president, said the company has conserved more than 310,000 acres held by 260 landowners across the south-central United States, including about 65,000 acres for about 50 Louisiana landowners. Landowners earn a royalty on the credits sold.

"So, there's a lot different (business) models and different sizes and shapes to all of this," he said.

A 2,500-mile drive

Carbon dioxide is part of a natural cycle in the air and soil that has helped maintain life on Earth for eons.

But manmade emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases released from burning fossil fuels have sharply increased atmospheric concentrations since the start of the industrial revolution in the mid-1700s, numerous scientific studies have found.

Scientists believe these rising carbon dioxide concentrations are happening far more quickly and are far higher than past known natural cycles. The increases are driving global climate change, boosting global average temperatures by 2 degrees Fahrenheit since 1850 and fueling continued sea level rise that models show pose an existential threat to coastal regions like Louisiana.

While a variety of technological methods are being explored to cut emissions or, controversially, store them underground, trees provide a natural means to the same end.

Tied to changed forestry practices aimed at boosting trees' natural carbon storage, carbon credits are seen as a step to future technological advances to cut carbon.

One carbon credit represents 1 metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent gases. Prices can vary sharply but are higher in regulatory markets, like in California, where they are required.

A car running at 22 miles per gallon emits a ton of carbon over 2,500 miles, according the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Climate Portal. That's about the same distance as making a roundtrip drive between Baton Rouge and Phoenix, Arizona.

But, the credit programs have been questioned by environmentalists, academic researchers and some investment groups over how much they actually reduce emissions and whether they are abetting continued use of fossil fuels in lieu of harder changes.

Researchers have noted that over-estimates of carbon storage can occur through underestimating the baseline figures upon which tree growth is later measured. 

Also, raising questions is the counterfactual embedded in any credits program based on reduced tree harvests. The credits' carbon value is based on ending old "business as usual" methods that stored less carbon in trees. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has noted these problems and the attempts by the industry through carbon registries with established measurement protocols to add more confidence in the credits.

Aurora is using the American Carbon Registry, the oldest registry for voluntary markets.

Worthington and other Aurora officials demonstrated their measurement practices last week during a visit offered to media organizations and a crew producing promotional videos for the company.

Tree "6" was part of more than 280 carbon plots in a more than 2,000-acre tract just west of the Atchafalaya River in southern Avoyelles Parish. 

Aurora collects carbon storage data  within a certain radius of metal bars driven into the ground. Each carbon plot has one of these bars.

Using statistical methods, the grid of plots is used to test annual estimated carbon storage gain and loss over time through tree growth, death, destruction from storms or other losses, Worthington and Manuel explained.

Worthington said the company uses conservative methods that undercount the amount of carbon storage happening and has its own internal and third-party auditors check its calculations.

Aurora has also brought in Manuel, the local forester who managed its Louisiana properties before the company purchased them, for his historical knowledge of the land. 

Aurora hasn't started selling credits yet on its Louisiana land because it's still going through the American Carbon Registry's review process.

But company officials said they expect the Louisiana lands to produce about 5 million to 7 million credits over the project's lifetime.

"Credits for the Louisiana Lowlands project should be available in early 2025," company officials said.