Last week, Keep It Colorado, an organization dedicated to uniting and empowering Colorado’s land trusts, conservation partners and public agencies, hosted a webinar about the opportunities land trusts have to participate in the carbon market. The webinar featured Nicole Rosmarino of Southern Plains Land Trust and Sarah Wescott of Climate Action Reserve as speakers.

The presentation provides a great introduction of carbon offsets, carbon offset project development and carbon offset quality protocols. It then moves into a differentiation of the types of carbon markets and the role of carbon registries and land trusts.

Nicole Rosmarino then goes into a case study of how Southern Plains Land Trust was able to develop a grassland carbon offset project, with the help of Native, and monitor its impacts. She mentioned that using Native’s 20-year credit forward sales approach was key to their ability to purchase 6,000 acres of grassland for conservation.

Sarah Wescott ends by applying this case study into a how-to for all land trusts, going over topics like receiving credit issuance, necessary requirements and planning for success. To listen to the full webinar recording, click here.