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Forestry & Agriculture
Forestry Sector Working Group

The Forest Sector Workgroup on Climate Change Mitigation has been convened to develop recommendations regarding how forest lands may participate voluntarily to help Washington State meet its goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The recommendations to be developed by the forest sector group were called for by the State Legislature in major climate change legislation passed in the 2008 session. The forest sector group will work in consultation with the larger Climate Action Team, led by the Director of Ecology, Jay Manning and Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development Director Juli Wilkerson. State Commissioner of Public Lands Doug Sutherland is a member of that team.

One way forestlands may participate is to sell carbon emission reduction “credits” to power plants or other entities required to reduce their emissions in the future, such as by the regional “cap and trade” system being designed by the Western Climate Initiative, of which Washington is a member. Pacific Northwest forests and long-lived forest products act as sinks for atmospheric carbon, and careful accounting for those functions could create sellable credits. The recommendations may address commercial and other working forests, forest products, forests set aside or managed for conservation, reforestation or avoiding conversion of forest land to non-forest use.

This workgroup will meet regularly from April through October, and is being convened by DNR Policy Director Craig Partridge and Stephen Bernath, a Senior Policy Analyst for Forestry at Department of Ecology. Materials will be posted to this site, and meetings are open to the public.

Final Recommendations

• Final Forest Sector Package

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Meetings and Agendas
(all documents are in PDF format)

October 13, 2008. CI/DNR conference room, in the Tumwater DNR Compound at Washington State Light Industrial Park, 801 88th Ave SE Tumwater, WA 98512 Map
Meeting Documents:

• Agenda
• Urban Forest recommendations
• Avoided Conversion--On-site Clustering and TDR Program
• Ecosystem Services Districts recommendation
• Recommendation to convene stakeholder group on guiding growth in rural and resource lands
• Proposal on Forest Health and Avoided Forest Fires
• FM1 - Introduction to Forest Management Section
• FM2 - Additionality and Baseline
• FM3 - Leakage
• FM4 - Permanence-Enforceability
• FM5 - Measurement - Verification
• FM6 - All-Pool Accounting, Including the Harvested Wood Products Pool
• FM7 - Complementary Forest Carbon Storage Incentive Program
• Embodied GHG emissions

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September 23, 2008, Triad Urban Center (701 3rd Ave, Seattle)
Meeting Documents: 

• Agenda
• PowerPoint slides used at the CAT meeting on 9/18
• On-site Clustering and TDR Program proposal
• Proposed Workgroup recommendation
• Forest Conversion Mitigation Proposal
• Issues Summary from 8/19/08 Forest Management subgroup meeting
• Recommendations from the Urban Forest subgroup 
• Revised Version of the Ecosystem Services Districts proposal 
• New Version of the Embodied GHG/Green Building proposal 

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September 5, 2008, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, Department of Ecology Headquarters, Lacey
Meeting Documents: 

• Agenda
• Revised Avoided Forest Conversion through On-Site Clustering and Transfer of Development Rights Program proposal
• Suggested language from Cascade Land Conservancy for Avoided Conversion Proposal
• Informational link: "Is the Future of Forest Offsets Already Here?" published 8/22 in the Katoomba Group's Ecosystem Marketplace News.
• Draft Mitigation Fee Proposal
• Urban forests and climate change

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August 12, 2008, 10am-4:00pm, Cherberg Building, Hearing Room 2, on the Capitol Campus in Olympia - Campus map
Meeting Summary
Meeting Documents:

• Draft meeting agenda
• Summary of CTEDs Policy Advisory Committee on Transfer of Development Rights (TDRs)
• Updated and expanded version of the Embodied GHG proposal from 8-6-08
• Revised avoided conversion/smart growth proposal
• Discussion Points from Avoided Conversion Subgroup
• Draft Afforestation
• Draft Forest Management Framework
• Draft Baseline Definition

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July 9, 2008, 10:00 am to 3:30 pm, Weyerhaeuser Corporate Headquarters Building, Federal Way
Meeting summary
Meeting Documents:

• Agenda (draft)
• Tools for Slowing Conversion in Addition to an Offset or Cap and Trade System: Ecosystem Services Districts
• Avoided Conversion design discussion
  • “Avoided Conversion Thru Smart Growth”. A recommendation that the state develop a program that would provide incentives to local jurisdictions to implement Smart Growth Policies that reduce pressure for forest conversion within the state and thus statewide GHG emissions from forest conversion.
  • “Embodied Greenhouse Gas Emissions” Background and recommendations to support building materials with low embodied greenhouse gas emissions as way to keep working forests as forests.
  • “Forestland Parcels Database”. A proposal to fund, during the 09-11 biennium, a database of parcels throughout the state with a forest land use land cover attribute. This database is currently being constructed using a variety of fund sources, state, federal and private. The database needs a consistent funding source in order to be maintained on a regular interval. This database ultimately could be used to track conversion rates and potentially be used to demonstrate appropriate design principles for chosen forest projects. As the workgroup continues to develop recommendations for forest projects and the associated design principles, this database should be considered as one mechanism for tracking and verifying forest carbon offsets or other forest credits. The workgroup can fine tune this proposal as appropriate as it further develops recommendations.
• Informational presentation: Forest Carbon Protocols
  • “How Can Certain Forest Lands and Products Participate As an Offset or Other Credit in a Cap and Trade Program?” John Perez-Garcia, College of Forest Resources, University of Washington
• Materials for consideration of active forest management and harvested wood products
  • “Proposed Approach to Consideration of Active Forest Management and Harvested Wood Products”
  • “IPCC 2001 Working Group 3, Technical Summary Section 4, pages 41-44. Technical and Economic Potential of Options to Enhance, Maintain and Manage Biological Carbon Reservoirs and Geo-Engineering”
  • “IPCC 2007 Assessment Report: Mitigation. Chapter 9, Section 9.4: Forestry Mitigation Options, pages 547-551”
  • “Slide: Carbon Balance from a Hypothetical Forest Management Project”
  • “Slide: Cumulative Carbon Changes for a Scenario Involving Afforestation and Harvest”

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June 18, 2008, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. in the Green Room, Red Lyon Hotel, Tacoma WA
Meeting Summary
Meeting Documents:

• Agenda
• Informational presentations: Silvicultural Carbon
  • Carbon Sequestration in California Forests, Ed Murphy, Sierra Pacific Industries
  • Silvicultural Carbon Presentation, by Olga Krankina and Mark Harmon, Oregon State University. Pages 1-14 are relevant to the meeting topic. Note that the presentation covers several more topics than the workgroup will discuss, and goes beyond informational topics to include policy opinions.
• Informational presentations: Carbon in harvested wood products
  • Estimating Carbon in Harvested Wood Products, Rich Birdsey, US Forest Service
  •  Harvested Wood Products Carbon Accounting Considerations, Edie Sonne-Hall, Weyerhaeuser
• Avoided Conversion design discussion - The Avoided Conversion subgroup met on June 13, and spawned 4 sub-subgroups. The following are discussion materials from 3 of these groups. Given the very short time interval since the subgroup meeting, these materials are not yet polished, but will serve well to generate constructive discussion at the meeting.
• Subgroup 1. Prior to the subgroup meeting, Adrian Miller, on behalf of several others, circulated a proposal that was discussed extensively at the subgroup meeting. There has been some very constructive email traffic about a further-developed version of that proposal, but insufficient time to prepare a synthesis that did justice to the work-in-progress. Attached is a draft paper with comments.  At the meeting, the subgroup will help the group discuss these ideas, and then tie it all together after the meeting.
• Subgroup 2. To be discussed at the meeting.
• Subgroup 3. See attached draft regarding embodied ghg emissions.
• Subgroup 4. See attached draft regarding ecosystem service districts
• Slides presented by Michelle Connor, CLC, on Transfer of Development Rights

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May 28, 2008, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Meeting Summary
Meeting Documents:

• Agenda
• Oregon Forest Carbon Stakeholders Working Group's letter  5/19/08 to Janice Adair, Chair of WCI
• Proposed methodologies for use of meeting time - This set of methods for three types of sessions that will occur during full Workgroup meetings has been developed in response to homework. It is a work in progress and the basis for the 11:15 agenda item. These methodologies are intended to be helpful rather than cumbersome, to be adapted as necessary.
• Cap and Trade Information session (PowerPoint Presentations)
  • Spencer Reeder, Ecology
  • Clare Breidenich, Consultant
  • Alexia Kelly, The Climate Trust
• Land Use Conversion Information session
  • Ara Erickson, Univ. of Washington, College of Forest Resources

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April 30, 2008, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Meeting Summary
Meeting Documents:

• Agenda
• Handout on the interrelationships

Workgroup Documents

• Forest Sector Charter
• Statement of common interests, approved 5/28/08
• Overall meeting plan, updated 5/29/08
• Framework & priorities for Workgroup Attention, updated 5/29/08
• Scope of Work--UW College of Forest Resources

Additional Documents

• "Forest Carbon Basics"-- PowerPoint slides used by Prof. Mark Harmon, OSU, for a webinar with members of the Forest Sector Workgroup, 8/20/08.
• Harmon and Marks, 2002, “Effects of silvicultural practices on carbon stores in Douglas-fir – western hemlock forests in the Pacific Northwest, U.S.A.: results from a simulation model” (circulated by Paula Swedeen)
• Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), 5/1/2008, “Draft Recommendations to RGGI for Including New Forest Offset Categories: A Summary” (circulated by John Arum)
• Congressional Research Service, 4/4/2008, “The Role of Offsets in a Greenhouse Gas Emissions Cap-and-Trade Program: Potential Benefits and Concerns” (mentioned by Janice Adair at 1st meeting)

Members

• John Arum, Washington Environmental Council
• Len Barson, Bill Robinson & Cathy Baker, The Nature Conservancy
• Tim Boyd, The TSB Communications Group
• Clare Breidenich, Environmental Consultant
• Nina Carter, Audubon Washington
• Michelle Connor, Cascade Land Conservancy
• Kyle Davis, PacifiCorp
• Danielle Dixon, Northwest Energy Coalition
• Llewellyn Matthews, Northwest Pulp and Paper Association
• John Miller, Clallam County
• Debora Munguia, Washington Forest Protection Association
• Miguel Perez-Gibson, Consultant
• Phil Rigdon, Yakama Nation
• Edie Sonne Hall, Weyerhaeuser
• Steve Stinson, Family Forest Foundation
• Paula Swedeen , The Pacific Forest Trust
• Bettina von Hagen , Ecotrust