Keeling Curve

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Project Summary / Description:

This project will protect old-growth and mature structurally complex forests in the Elwha River Watershed and, when scaled, throughout Washington state. These forests provide drinking water security, carbon storage and sequestration, and critical habitat for endangered species. The project has been developing over the past year because of growing public concerns about rapid clear-cutting of the last remaining old-growth and older forests on public lands in Washington. We have been consulting with local government leaders on means other than clear-cut timber harvesting, to provide reliable revenue to rural communities. From these conversations, the idea emerged to create a replicable model that would generate revenue through carbon markets and ecological forest management (supplemented with low interest loans, philanthropic donations, and funding for nature based climate solutions) while transforming community forest stewardship by integrating Traditional Ecological Knowledge and centering the health of the Watershed as intrinsically linked to human health and well-being.

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How Project Affects Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions:

Removes/stores GHGs (e.g., projects that capture, sequester, or otherwise enhance the "sinks" that accumulate and store GHGs)

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Impact on Underrepresented Groups:

A key component of the Elwha River Watershed Community Stewardship model is the creation of a guardianship body that gives a voice to those traditionally underrepresented (including Nature itself). The project will engage youth through community hikes and various awareness events as well as members of the lower Elwha Klallam Tribe who have been stewards of the Elwha River Watershed since time immemorial.

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Mission Statement:

Earth Law Center advances a new, Earth-centered DNA for our legal system, including by recognizing the Rights of Nature. The project is located in the Pacific Northwest, Washington State, Olympic Peninsula. The Pacific Northwest has some of the highest carbon density forests in the world, which can store carbon in trees for 800 years or more ‚ this biomass can even exceed that of tropical forests. Substantial remnants of productive, high-biomass old-growth forests have survived here, while in other temperate forest regions they have been eliminated for centuries. One study investigating carbon removal by forests found that less than 3% of all forest lands in the conterminous United States are covered by high-biomass forests (i.e. forests that remove and retain levels of carbon above a certain high threshold) and that the Pacific Northwest holds 56.8% of them. Moreover, the Pacific Northwest holds 77.2% of forests with very high biomass.