Duke Energy has become the lead investor in GreenTrees, a privately managed forest restoration program created and managed by C2I for landowners in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley: Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

This enormous valley once held 24.7 million acres of forest and emergent wetlands. Today more than 18 million acres – or 80 percent – has been cleared, resulting in the loss of critical natural habitat.

The program is expected to generate high-quality, verifiable carbon offsets that Duke believes will help reduce the overall cost of compliance with federal climate change legislation. Duke’s initial investment will result in the planting of more than 1 million trees on approximately 1,700 acres in Arkansas.

GreenTrees is designed to create, enhance, and sustain conservation and wildlife benefits from afforestation. GreenTrees provides landowners the most economic and environmental value for each acre of trees planted. The program utilizes a specific inter-planting of 302 cottonwoods plus 302 mixed hardwoods per acre. The specific design of 302/302 delivers more conservation value, more carbon, and better sustainable hardwood revenues than a previous design of 302 cottonwood and 151 hardwoods.

In exchange for the landowners’ long-term lease to prevent reversibility, GreenTrees offers a variety of short and long-term income opportunities. Landowners can simultaneously enroll the same qualified acres into GreenTrees, CRP, and other conservation practices, thus receiving multiple financial incentives and incomes together.

GreenTrees was founded by Izaak Walton League of America board member Carey Crane and Texaco Chevron Conservation Award recipient Chandler Van Voorhis. Both men have received great inspiration from Crane’s mother, Maggie Bryant. Bryant is a past-two term Chairperson of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and retired from her board position in 2001. She has been awarded the prestigious Chevron Conservation Award as well as the Governor’s Award for Conservation in Mississippi, and she continues to be active in conservation measures around the world.

Landowners are enthusiastic about GreenTrees. Arkansas landowner Brandon Stafford is a recent enrollee. Stafford found himself with 210 acres of un-irrigated farmland that he had to do something with. He enrolled it in CRP and GreenTrees. After the initial planting and subsequent sprayings Brandon says, “It’s amazing what the trees are doing.” The CRP and GreenTrees programs work in concert for him. Currently over 2,500 acres from 20 landowners are enrolled in the program.

To learn more about GreenTrees, visit their website: www.green-trees.com.

Related posts:

1. 2010 Timberland Investment World Summit Oct. 27-29
2. 6th Timberland Investment World Summit October 26-28
3. Historic Dahlstrom Ranch Conservation Easement Finalized
4. $500 Million Everglades Deal Postponed Again
5. Heath Shuler: Eye on the Prize

Update: The complete tract of land went unsold during the brief auction. The first tract at 50 acres was passed on at $120,000, the second tract at 40 acres was unsold at $96,000, and the third tract at 80 acres was unsold at $192,000. A combination of all three tracts was passed on as well.

170 acres, broken up into three tracts of 50, 40 and 80 acres, goes on the block Saturday in Marion County, IL. The land can be used both for hunting and CRP income. Buy A Farm Land and Auction Co. will host the bidding.

The minimum opening bids on the property start at $2,400 an acre.

Located on Blackburn Road, 15 minutes from I-57 in Centralia, the property could be a solid buy if you happened to scoop up all three parcels. Each has a decent CRP income; they total about $6,500 per year. According to the listing, deer abound on the property.

This would make a nice long weekend retreat for hunters in St. Louis or Chicago.

Bids will be taken at the Iuka Grade School or online. 10% down is required at the end of the auction with the balance at closing.

Related posts:

1. On the Block: 41.92 Acres in Virginia’s Loudoun County
2. On the Block: Aubrey McClendon’s 271 Ranch
3. $500 Million Everglades Deal Postponed Again
4. Ask the Expert: Andy Smyth

I can’t say for sure that the discussion in Congress was about the Conservation Reserve Program, but it’s hard to imagine any other program that could have fit the bill the lawmakers were talking about. The debate centered on when food prices – specifically corn, grain, and rice – would start dropping. Whoever was speaking kept highlighting that land that would be coming out of contracts would undoubtedly be used for farming as demand has increased for food.

Growing corn pays more now than it used to, and it sure pays more than growing dirt with land enrolled in the CRP.

From the moment I began reporting for The Land Report, I became a witness to this debate. Last year I saw it first-hand as the demand for ethanol sent corn prices through the roof to $4 a bushel. More and more land was being converted from farming and expiring CRP contracts to produce ethanol. Now it has become clear that our love affair with this wonder fuel has failed. Not only does it not solve our fuel problems, but it has sent our food prices shooting skyward.

So what we’ve got is a obsession with an idea that won’t work (see: ethanol) causing food prices to further strain the economy (see: your local grocery store) pushing some to rethink their efforts to preserve land (see: CRP) because of a need to generate different sources of income (see: recession).

So what say you? Do you have CRP land that you’re rethinking the contract on? What are your options and how much do you stand to gain from it should you pull land out?

No related posts.

With the Bush administration backing off on the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), conservation and hunting groups fear the 22-year-old program once dubbed “Noah’s Arc for Wildlife” is a sinking ship.

Backers of the CRP, which pays farmers to plant soil-conserving grass and trees on land they might otherwise farm, call the program a boon to hunters, saying it has created millions of acres of new grasslands while dramatically increasing game bird populations.

But with demand for ethanol surging, corn prices more than doubling since 2005, the USDA is reducing the scope of the program. No new CRP contracts will be offered in the next two years, and the USDA is considering allowing some farmers to cancel existing contracts. That’s a bad idea, says Rob Olson, president of Delta Waterfowl, a North Dakota group that promotes conservation of waterfowl and hunter’s rights. Olson says changing the program could remove 28 million acres of the current 36 million acres in CRP by 2010. And, he argues, that CRP acreage isn’t even the best land to develop for corn production.

“It would be a mistake to start plowing these fragile soils,” Olson says.

Related posts:

1. Historic Dahlstrom Ranch Conservation Easement Finalized
2. Heath Shuler: Eye on the Prize
3. Sold! Boot Jack Ranch Goes for $47 Million
4. Land Report 100: No. 62 Clayton Williams Jr.
5. Crossing the Divide with Al Biernat