Belwin Conservancy Launches Carbon Sequestration Program
The Belwin Conservancy has launched an innovative new carbon sequestration program at its preserve in Afton, Minnesota. Individuals and organizations can make a contribution to the Belwin Conservancy that will be used to sequester carbon through restoration of native prairies, oaks savannas and woodlands. Unlike similar programs available online, carbon sequestration done at the Belwin Conservancy is local. This allows the Belwin Conservancy to ensure that donations go directly to the carbon sequestration project rather than through an intervening organization. Donors can directly see how their contributions are both sequestering carbon and enriching the biodiversity of the community where they live.
Global warming will not be solved without a multi-pronged worldwide approach. While government struggles with how exactly to address the climate crisis, many individuals and business are taking matters into their own hands. Today it is easy to purchase carbon credits online from any number of organizations that use the money to do everything from planting trees to funding renewable energy. Buyers are funding these projects to offset the impact of their own activities.
The Belwin Conservancy’s innovative new carbon program takes this one step further. For over three decades, the Belwin Conservancy has been restoring native prairies, oak savannas and woodlands on its preserve located in Afton, Minnesota. While these beautiful native ecosystems are critical to both the plants and animals that depend upon them, they are also adept at sequestering carbon. Productive ecosystems draw carbon out of the atmosphere and store it in plants and soil. Protected native ecosystems will store that carbon long-term, creating a sustainable carbon sink.
As long as these systems are healthy, they grow and sequester carbon. Due to land use changes in this area, and the rise of invasive species including buckthorn, the local landscape is not as productive nor sustainable as it should be. This means that our local ecosystems do not sequester carbon at the rate that they are capable of, if they do at all.
Contributions to the Belwin Conservancy’s carbon fund will be used by the organization to both restore and maintain its prairies and woodlands, making them into sustainable carbon sinks.
“After we preformed an audit of the Belwin Conservancy’s carbon budget, we were blown away by just how much carbon we were taking in relative to what we expend doing the restoration we were already doing,” said Steve Hobbs, Executive Director of the Belwin Conservancy. “We started thinking about how much carbon we would be able to sequester if we had more partners making it possible for us to restore even more of our preserve.”
The Belwin Conservancy’s program is different not in how it sequesters carbon, but in the impact it will make by doing so. Because the money will be spent locally to enhance habitat and biodiversity, it will have a direct effect on the plants and animals that reside in this part of Minnesota. The Belwin Conservancy is only 20 minutes from downtown Saint Paul, thus visiting the preserve in Afton and seeing how the carbon sequestration works is easy.
The Belwin Conservancy already knows where the first contributions to its carbon fund will go. “We have a large oak savanna restoration project that we have been working on for several years,” said Steve Hobbs. “It’s such a gorgeous spot, and with a little more work, it’ll really take off this year. I really can’t think of a more beautiful way to fight global warming.”
To make a carbon fund donation with the Belwin Conservancy, and make yourself carbon-neutral, visit the carbon page. There you can figure out your carbon footprint, or simply make a contribution.