Staples and Home Depot to Pay to Conserve Southern U.S. Forests

Some news of payments for ecosystem services happening in the here and now.  Apparently Staples and Home Depot, in a partnership with environmental groups, are getting into the act to conserve the southeastern U.S.'s rapidly disappearing forests:

Staples, the office products company, and Home Depot, the home products retailer and one of the leading sellers of wood, will provide funding to pay private landowners in Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina to conserve and manage their forested land.

The amount of money contributed to the project has yet to be determined, but negotiations with landowners are under way, said Danna Smith, executive director of the environmental group Dogwood Alliance of Asheville, North Carolina.

Private landowners, who collectively own roughly 90 percent of forested land across the U.S. Southeast, will be required to place their land into conservation easements and manage it in a way that boosts carbon sequestration, Smith said.

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