Thank you to everyone who joined us for the March 22, 2022 virtual meeting of the Northeast Carbon Alliance, exploring the links between biodiversity, habitat connectivity, and carbon sequestration!
Ned Sullivan, Scenic Hudson’s President welcomed everyone, and Pia Ruisi-Besares, Scenic Hudson’s new Director of Science, Climate and Stewardship facilitated Q&A.
We want to extend a very special thanks to our presenters:
William Schuster, Black Rock Forest
Peter Karis, Open Space Institute
Thomas Almendinger, Duke Farms
Spencer Meyer, NCX
You can watch the full meeting below:
If you would like to view a particular presentation, they are featured below.
RECONNECTING FOR WILDLIFE AND PEOPLE IN THE HUDSON VALLEY
William Schuster, Executive Director at Black Rock Forest and Peter Karis, Vice President for Parks and Stewardship at Open Space Institute made a joint presentation on the importance of protecting habitat and landscape connectivity of wide ranging native carnivores to manage deer populations and keep herbivory at levels that permit forest regeneration and carbon sequestration. Bill and Peter have jointly developed this novel “reconnecting” project while working with New York State Parks (OPRHP) and the NY Thruway Authority.
HIGHLIGHTS
Although small, coyotes are powerful carnivores. At 7:30, witness a single coyote take down an adult buck on its own.
Bobcats also occasionally prey on deer. At 8:29, a bobcat returns to a deer carcass to feed several times during the night.
RESTORING FORESTS THROUGH EFFECTIVE WHITE-TAILED DEER MANAGEMENT
Thomas Almendinger, Director of Natural Resources and AgroEcology at Duke Farms talked about the recovery of forest understory vegetation and tree regeneration following intensive deer management on Duke Farms property, a 1108-ha preserve in Central New Jersey, which was severely degraded by extremely high densities of deer and non-indigenous plant species. The deer populations on their property were around 250 deer per square mile when they started managing populations back in 2004. They have limited predators in their area, and have utilized intensive hunting programs to control excessive deer populations.
NCX: A DATA-DRIVEN FOREST CARBON MARKETPLACE
Spencer Meyer, Director, Science Strategy and Stakeholder Engagement at the Natural Capital Exchange, spoke about their science-driven forest carbon marketplace, which utilizes high integrity data to generate carbon credits that have real climate benefits and connect corporations to family forests. The NCX carbon marketplace is accessible to all landowners with working forests in the contiguous United States, and agreements are based on one-year harvest deferral commitments. In its latest program cycle, NCX enrolled nearly 1,800 landowners with 2 million acres across 39 states, with an expected 250,000 MTCO2e of climate impact.