Carbon markets keep our forests healthy | Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Arkansas lost more than 80,000 acres of forestland last year, but a state-rooted carbon market model is now being used to help landowners keep forests in the family. The concept pays for verified carbon emissions reductions or removals, including storing additional carbon by lengthening the time between timber harvests. Its Arkansas origin traces back to Winthrop Rockefeller’s Winrock Farms on Petit Jean Mountain and the later creation of ACR, which in 1996 launched the world’s first private greenhouse-gas crediting program. A system for measuring, reporting, verifying and tracking real results issued serialized credits in 2002. Today, 375 million credits cover 875 projects, including 60-plus in Arkansas, spanning 13.5 million forest acres across the U.S. and Canada.