Conservation Fund e-newsletter - Vol. 3.5

At an unprecedented pace, Americans are investigating what may be the biggest environmental challenge of our time: global climate change. From the debut of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth to the cover of Time, it is clear that leading corporations, individuals and our elected officials are taking notice of the trends associated with global warming and climate change.

The Conservation Fund has been at the forefront of this effort since 2000. Through its pioneering Climate Change Program, the Fund has worked with companies within the utility and energy industries, including American Electric Power, DTE Energy and many others to promote voluntary and market-based solutions to climate change that generate carbon credits using a technique known as carbon sequestration through reforestation. The Fund also launched its Go ZeroSM program, which allows individuals, companies or specific brands to zero out their carbon footprint by funding reforestation projects.

The following interview with John Rogers, the Fund’s climate change program manager, addresses some frequently asked questions about climate change and reforestation.

Gerry Anderson, president and chief operating officer of DTE Energy, explains how forest restoration is an important piece of the puzzle in his company's strategy for addressing climate change. "We believe that forest restoration provides the scale to be a significant contributor to addressing the issue.... Forest restoration could also reverse the impact of forest clearing over the past three centuries and, at the same time, expand wildlife habitat, provide recreational opportunities and lend much needed financial support to the agricultural sector."

Fermata, Inc., and The Conservation Fund recently met with state and local officials and residents in Nacogdoches, Texas, to launch a $35 million, 30,000-acre initiative to enhance nature-based tourism and land conservation in the Pineywoods area. “For more than a century, this region has drawn on its cultural heritage, historic places and natural resources—especially forests—as a stable source of good jobs,” said the Fund’s Andy Jones at the May 2 gathering. “Protecting these resources for future generations will require an all hands-on-deck approach that balances economic and environmental goals.” The Fund and Fermata, which focuses on nature-based tourism, plan to inventory and market the natural, cultural and historic resources in the Pineywoods region, known for its forests, rivers and azalea trails.

BP North America and Chase recently launched a new BP Visa card that offers rebates that users can donate to The Conservation Fund. The card (877/278-4729, bpchase.com) offers 5% rebates on all BP purchases, 2% rebates on most travel and dining and 1% on most other purchases. Rebate donations to the Fund will establish the BP Cardmember Land Legacy Fund, which will benefit the Revolving Fund, where the money is leveraged and reinvested in land protection efforts up to three times every five years.

As part of its climate change program, The Conservation Fund launched Go Zero in 2005, a program designed to engage people around the world—companies, communities and individuals—to combat global warming. Go Zero measures the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of virtually any slice of life—from a family’s home energy use or an office building’s energy output to individual travel or a concert performance. The program then offsets that impact by planting native trees, which absorb CO2 as they grow.

Featured this year on Good Morning America and profiled in Vanity Fair magazine and The New York Times, Go Zero is becoming popular among corporations and individuals. Groups ranging from The North Face and Disney to Yale University and Gaiam have incorporated Go Zero into their conservation and outreach strategies.