Carbon markets keep our forests healthy | Arkansas Democrat Gazette

A commentary argues that carbon markets can help keep Arkansas forests healthy by compensating landowners for emissions reduced or removed through activities that otherwise wouldn’t happen. It points to Arkansas as a birthplace of today’s global carbon market, tracing roots to Winrock Farms on Petit Jean Mountain founded by Winthrop Rockefeller and later Winrock International, and to ACR’s 1996 launch of the world’s first private greenhouse gas crediting program. The piece says the program has issued 375 million carbon credits across 875 projects, including more than 60 in Arkansas, and that projects cover 13.5 million acres of forestland in the US and Canada. With over 200,000 families owning forestland and families controlling 55% of Arkansas forests, it frames carbon credits as a way to preserve land across generations as inheritance taxes and subdividing pressures contribute to forest loss.