HOW WE SUPPORT
Carbon & Ecosystem Markets
We help landowners and Tribal Nations navigate carbon and other environmental payment markets to unlock potential revenue streams when forests are managed in ways that enhance ecological and cultural health.
Market experts
We help you determine whether your reforestation project is a good fit and connect landowners with best-in-class market developers.
NOT-FOR-PROFIT GUIDANCE
We are a neutral third party here to help you to understand the opportunities, weigh trade-offs, and make decisions.
We advocate for you
We provide objective, unbiased guidance to help you determine whether market opportunities align with your management goals, values, and priorities.
WHAT WE DO
We’ll help connect you to programs and services that can help you work toward your reforestation goals.
Carbon Credit Markets
Carbon markets allow landowners to earn revenue by planting or protecting trees that capture and store carbon. The generated carbon credits can be sold on the market to companies or individuals looking to reduce their carbon footprint.
Carbon Market Participation
Our site-specific reforestation planning starts with your land stewardship goals and ends with identifying funding and financing options, including potential carbon market opportunities.
Projects are typically a good fit when:
- Deforestation wasn’t due to harvest
- Replanting isn’t legally required
- Native species will be used to restore a forest
- Restoration success is unlikely without external funding
- The site is large enough — generally 500 to 5,000 acres depending on climate, soils, and growing conditions
While carbon credits can help offset costs, trade-offs include:
- Payoff that takes decades
- Multi-decade commitment requirements
- Reduced land management flexibility
Tribal Carbon Market Projects
Alongside the National Indian Carbon Coalition and other partners, we provide free feasibility analysis and technical support to help Tribal Nations advance their forest management goals.
We don’t generate or sell credits. Instead, we help Tribes:
- Understand how carbon markets work, including afforestation and reforestation credits
- Assess feasibility based on land eligibility, acreage, trust status, seedling availability, and long-term monitoring needs
- Identify risks and trade-offs related to contract length, revenue timelines, management and land use restrictions, and liability for carbon loss
- Evaluate cultural and sovereignty considerations, such as impacts on ceremonial access, gathering, sacred sites, and Tribal authority over land decisions
Water & Watershed Health
Healthy forests naturally filter and regulate water, protecting streams, rivers, and the communities downstream. Through emerging water payment mechanisms, landowners and Tribal Nations can be compensated for stewarding upstream lands that improve water quality or increase water availability.
Watershed Services
Payments for watershed services reward actions that maintain or improve water quality, quantity, or timing. By quantifying the water benefits of reforestation or forest restoration, your project may qualify for funding tied to priority watersheds and waterways.
What to know about watershed services:
- They make the value of water and healthy watersheds explicit in economic terms
- Payment mechanisms and emerging markets vary significantly by region
- Typically less developed than carbon markets, they can offer opportunities in areas facing water quality or supply challenges
Water Markets
Emerging water markets are systems that allow water rights (or entitlements to use water) to be bought, sold, or leased among users—such as farmers, industries, municipalities, or environmental groups. Examples include water use trading mechanisms in the water-scarce regions of the western U.S. that function primarily at state and regional scales.
What to know about water markets:
- They make the value of water supply explicit in economic terms, aligning incentives for conservation and efficient use
- Payment mechanisms and emerging markets vary significantly by region
- May offer opportunities in regions facing water supply challenges
Biodiversity Markets
Emerging biodiversity markets recognize and reward efforts to protect wildlife habitat and restore ecological diversity.
Biodiversity Credits &
Co-Benefits
As biodiversity markets and credits are developed, these systems may be a way to help pay landowners to conserve or restore habitat. American Forests is partnering with local organizations to develop and pilot biodiversity benefit accounting tools tailored to regional ecosystems, including projects in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas and the Hawaiian Islands.
What to know:
- These market-based approaches are in the early stages of development in the United States
- Several pilot programs and standards currently being tested
- Beyond formal trading markets, biodiversity co-benefits, such as supporting and enhancing pollinator habitat or wildlife corridors, can strengthen the case for funding reforestation projects
Biochar Opportunities
Biochar is a stable, carbon-rich material made by burning woody biomass under low-oxygen conditions. It is used to enrich soils and has promising applications in water treatment, construction, animal feed, and energy storage.
Biochar Opportunities
American Forests is navigating the still-limited biochar market opportunities available regionally to help landowners explore revenue opportunities from biochar production, especially in post-fire areas with abundant woody material.
Soil enrichment benefits:
- Improves nutrient density
- Improves water-holding capacity
- Reduces fertilizer needs
- Enhances soil microbiota
- Increases crop yields
Biochar also has promising applications in water treatment, construction, animal feed, and energy storage.
Talk to an American Forests Expert
Not sure where to start? You don’t have to figure out reforestation on your own. We’ll work with you to connect you to the right resources — free of charge.