Calif. firm plans tree plantation in Nevada to fight deforestation and build carbon credits

Nevada tree plantation to help fight deforestation

RENO, Nev. — An international forestry company embarking on a global effort to accumulate carbon credits while slowing deforestation has picked an unlikely site for the first of up to 100,000 acres of tree plantations it intends to grow on U.S. soil in the coming years.

ECO2 Forests Inc. announced plans Tuesday to plant up to 3 million trees over the next seven years at irrigated tree farms in northern Nevada’s high desert covering a total of up to 21 square miles north of Reno, an area about the size of the island of Bermuda.

The Sacramento, Calif.-based company, in conjunction with land owners collectively named Jaksick Entities, has acquired the water rights needed to launch the first of seven, 2,000-acre plantations in May to grow kiri trees.

The kiri (pronounced kih-REE’) is a fast growing, broad-leafed hardwood that is native to China and naturally regenerates from the stump after harvest, EC02 Forests officials said.

It grows up to 20 feet the first year, up to 80 feet tall and 20 inches thick by the end of the seven-year harvesting cycle and captures as much or more carbon than any other tree currently known, said Collie Christensen, ECO2 Forests’ chief executive officer.

He projects annual revenue of $225 million at the Nevada site: $12 million in carbon credit sales and $213 million in sales of sustainable lumber.

“By growing our sustainable forests we can help stop the logging of forests that have existed for hundreds of years and enjoyed by thousands of families every year,” Christensen said.

“Due to the specific regenerative nature of the kiri tree being planted and its ability to regrow from the stump after each harvest, the project should endure for approximately 50 years and then can be extended again by replanting,” he said.

ECO2 recently announced a similar 2,000-acre project on the South Pacific island of Vanualu and currently is reviewing the potential for kiri plantations on more than 1 million acres around the world, company officials said.

In addition to creating 280 jobs and $1.5 billion in revenue over the seven-year cycle, ECO2 officials expect the Nevada farms to produce about 560 million board feet of lumber — enough to build about 56,000 typical single family homes, although most of this wood likely will be used for such things as furniture and boat construction, company officials said.

They also expect to create 6.5 million carbon credits that can be sold to third parties or on the open markets globally at an estimated $84 million per cycle. They said over its seven year life, a single kiri tree typically sequesters up to 2.5 tons of CO2, generating up to 2.5 carbon credits.

“That is a high number,” said Louis Blumberg, director of California forest and climate policy for The Nature Conservancy. He has been involved in developing forest certification protocols with the Climate Action Reserve, formerly known as the California Climate Action Registry.

Many countries already mandate a cap-and-trade policy in which overall pollution reduction targets are met by allowing facilities to buy and sell pollution credits.

A cap-and-trade bill passed the U.S. House last year in a close vote but is viewed as unlikely to pass the Senate this year.

California enacted the first economy-wide cap on emissions in the United States four years ago, requiring greenhouse gas emissions be reduced to 1990 levels by 2020.

Blumberg said he wasn’t familiar with ECO2 but that its information about the project “looks legit.” He said its projection that every 1,000 acres of kiri trees will sequester over 460,000 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere every seven years is also “a significant number, a meaningful number.”

While northern Nevada’s high desert averages less than 10 inches of precipitation a year, ECO2 will implement an irrigation process that conserves water by pinpointing spray mists over the tops of trees.

“It’s almost like in your yard with an irrigation drip system,” Christensen said.

In addition, kiri trees go dormant in the winter and don’t require watering then, he said.

“They really love the tropical weather where they have a lot of sunlight. And with Nevada averaging 300 days of sunlight a year,” he said, “it’s the perfect place.”