Timberland Documentary About the Conservation Value of Urban Forests - Dig It

I'm proud to share a clip from my first documentary film appearance. The film is named "Dig It" -- about the valuable benefits that urban forests provide to people and biodiversity alike.

Huge props to Danny Clinch, Tim Donnelly and crew for an exceptional job on this, and special thanks to Timberland for their support.

Enjoy...

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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Human Health Concerns Stop Logging Project

Here's a neat story about human health concerns -- about drinking water quality -- stopping a logging project in British Columbia.

It's a nice illustration of how the benefits people reap from sustainably managing forests can be made clear by the threats posed by unsustainable management practices.

According to the article, the response from the local community has been very positive:

Barry Janyk, who is both the mayor of the town of Gibsons and a member of the regional district board that approved the order in a vote Saturday, said the public response to the decision has been overwhelmingly positive.


“We've heard nothing but praise, without exception. … There's a sense justice has been upheld,” Mr. Janyk said from Gibsons.


Mr. Janyk said that during five days of hearings, the regional district heard conflicting statements on the impact of logging on drinking water. In the end the directors decided to opt on the side of caution.

He then posed a very interesting question that gets to the heart of current efforts to devise ways for forest owners to make a living by maintaining environmental services (such as protection of drinking water supplies) provided to society by their lands:

“This really goes to the whole principle of is it worth the risk?” he said of weighing the economic worth of logging against the value of clean drinking water.

Right now, even though both logging and clean drinking water have lots of value to human communities, forest owners can make money by logging their land, but not so easily by maintaining its "ecosystem service" of providing clean drinking water. Groups like the Natural Capital Project are working to change this. I look forward to following their progress!