[B]urnt Mountain, a 2,800-foot-high point on a forested ridge in the Northeast Kingdom, will be conserved as a wild area by The Nature Conservancy. It will be the state’s first carbon storage project to enroll in California’s cap and trade program, the conservancy announced Thursday.
The nearly 5,500-acre parcel of forestland — encompassing the towns of Montgomery, Eden, Westfield, Lowell and Belvidere near Jay Peak — can no longer be developed, but will remain open for public access.
Burnt Mountain will be the largest of the 56 parcels of land The Nature Conservancy owns in Vermont, the organization’s state director Heather Furman said in an interview Wednesday. Because Burnt Mountain adjoins state forest, state parks and privately held conserved lands, the total parcel of conserved forestland covers 11,000 acres, she said.
The conservancy assumed ownership of Burnt Mountain with the Vermont Land Trust in 1997, as part of a much larger purchase of 26,000 acres made possible by a private donation, Furman said. Some of the land was resold as working forestland, for maple sugaring and timber harvesting, with easements maintaining public access and preventing development.
Ecologists assessing the Burnt Mountain area found high quality forest types that are rare in that part of the state, including “rich northern hardwood forest” — an ecological community dominated by sugar maple, with basswood and white ash sprinkled in as well. This led to the decision to designate the parcel as a wilderness area, off limits to logging. Hunting will still be allowed on the property.
“We are advocates for a tapestry of land uses that include forests that are managed for products like timber and maple syrup, as well as those properties that achieve our ecological goals,” said Furman.
Nature Conservancy partner Northeast Wilderness Trust will hold the “forever wild” easement, as the trust has extensive experience in that type of conservation, said Furman. Only 3.2 percent of Vermont forests are conserved as wild areas. As part of the management of the property for ecological functions, the conservancy will add whole trees to Calavale Brook — a stream within the property that drains into the Lamoille River — to improve trout habitat.
Burnt Mountain will be the first forest in Vermont to enroll in California’s cap and trade program as a carbon storage project. The conservancy has estimated the cap and trade program could provide as much as $2 million in revenue over 10 years.
Land parcels must be 5,000 acres or larger to be eligible for California’s carbon storage program, but smaller forest parcels can be combined to be eligible for voluntary carbon offset programs, said a UVM study on Vermont forest carbon projects. Landowners must follow forest management practices that increase the forest’s ability to store carbon over time.
“Carbon markets offer new potential for adding value to conserved and working forests, providing supplemental revenue that can be layered on top of the other stewardship mechanisms available to landowners in our region,” said the study’s authors.
The Nature Conservancy has had to innovate in how it finances conservation projects as state funding has decreased in recent years, said Furman. Although 23 percent of land in Vermont is conserved as farmland or forest, public funding for conservation in New England has diminished by half since 2008. Vermont has been losing 1,500 acres of forest each year for the past 10 years, a UVM study determined last year.
Furman noted that the revenue generated by enrolling Burnt Mountain in California’s carbon market will fund future forestland conservation projects. “We think that this can be a model for how large landowners can sustainably manage their forests going forward and also achieve a revenue off that,” she said.
“Forests are so important for Vermont’s identity,” she said. “We need to find creative ways to ensure that private landowners and organizations like ours have the ability to keep those forests protected.”
Rolf Anderson, who runs the conservation group Hazen’s Notch Association, said in an interview Thursday that when he began asking nearby residents in the early 1990s if they had hiked Burnt Mountain, he only found two people who answered yes. Both complained there was no view on the top, but he hiked up and found vista points near the summit, which he said prompted him to reach out to the landowner and establish a trail.
Anderson said he hasn’t been involved in the conservation process but is happy to see the land conserved.
The Nature Conservancy maintains an access point and trail network, and the group will work with community members on maintaining public access, said Eve Frankel, the group’s communications director.
