Chestnut Sustainable Restoration Project

This risk arises from competition for land, scarcity of land and value creation by the project. Regionally, Chestnut Carbon may increase demand for land that could alternatively be used for grazing or farming, which may escalate land prices. Likewise, as land is removed from agricultural production, then suitable land for grazing or farming may become of limited supply. Lastly, converting pastureland and farmland to new forests for carbon sequestration revenues may become the new benchmark for highest and best, further limiting the supply of local land available for agriculture.

To address this risk, Chestnut Carbon is pursuing three strategies: adhering to a policy that limits acquisitions to unproductive lands only, paying no more than market price for land as informed by comparable sales data and avoiding concentrating acquisitions in a single area.

Chestnut Carbon purchases land from third-parties which have typically limited public use of property in the past. Continuation of historical access restrictions therefore presents a risk of persisted public exclusion.

To create new access to land for the general public, Chestnut Carbon is committed to working with public agencies to transfer ownership of lands for permanent public benefit by leveraging Clean Water State Revolving Funds (CWSRF) and public conservation easement programs.

Wildfires pose an existential risk to certain types of forests and the communities that live within forested areas. The event of a wildfire could exacerbate fire intensity on newly planted lands and adjacent forestlands.

To mitigate the risk of catastrophic wildfire, Chestnut Carbon employs two strategies: diversifying tree species in planted forests and planning to maintain healthy forests. The former, Chestnut Carbon avoids the establishment of monoculture pine in favor of fire-resilient diversity in hardwood species. The later, Chestnut Carbon uses FSC-certified forest management plans that prescribe specific measures to control fire risk, such as thinning, treatment for fuel reduction and establishment of fire breaks.

This risk inherently arises from land use changes to newly planted forests. Where ranching and agriculture once contributed to local economies, a portion of production necessarily shifts to sequestering carbon in trees. Decreased production in customary land uses may threaten the livelihoods provided by existing economies.

Chestnut Carbon is acutely aware of this risk, and in response, intentionally limits its activities to unproductive lands so to minimize the shift in production and the effect on local economies. Toward mitigating any narrow effects of limited shifts in production, Chestnut Carbon is committed to creating new livelihoods by employing local workers through its employment policies. Further, Chestnut Carbon intends to deliver up to five percent of net sales to improve the sustainable production of cattle and crops elsewhere in the region, through the provision of special grant funds for technical assistance and outreach.

Conversion of bucolic pasture and agriculture lands to forestlands may be highly visible, contributing to a communal sense of identity loss as ranchers and farmers. The wholesale loss of cultural identity is a risk to delivering the expected project benefits of community wellbeing and inclusiveness.

While the conversion of unproductive pasture and agricultural land to forestland is principle to the project, Chestnut Carbon seeks to preserve communal identities by implementing a disbursement strategy in planting forests. Chestnut Carbon intends to disburse plantations across the Southeast and throughout the United States to avoid concentrating activities in any single community. Transparently, this strategy is intended to minimize the visibility of land use conversion to any single community by fundamentally minimizing the land use conversion in any single community.