Provides a survey of carbon benefits from wood substitution, biomass substitution, wildfire behavior modification, and avoided land use change.
Sohngen’s 2009 analysis argues for afforestation as a cost-effective mechanism for climate mitigation, modeling up to a 17% increase globally in forest acreage.
Zomer et al.’s 2016 report in Nature examines the contributions of agroforestry to global and national carbon budgets.
The Congressional Research Service’s 2009 report examines the use of afforestation to provide offsets under a cap-and-trade approach.
In 2015, Congress permanently extended an enhanced tax deduction for landowners donating a conservation easement to a land trust or government agency. The enhanced deduction allows famers and ranchers to deduct up to 100% of their income.
The Land Trust Alliance maintains a database of income tax incentives for land conservation. Their webpage discusses application of the federal conservation tax deduction in detail. Their April 2019 update to this list is captured here.
Congress has directed EPA to exclude crops “harvested from land cleared or cultivated” after December 19, 2007 from its definition of “renewable biomass,” however, the intent of the statute has largely been nullified in interpretation.
Prohibits farms from producing agricultural products on highly erodible land without a conservation plan, and on unconverted wetlands, respectively, if that land receives support under certain federal programs.
Surveys the complex body of state and federal law that shapes the creation, funding, tax treatment, enforcement, modification, and termination of conservation easements.
Argues that current laws will need to be revised and expanded to better recognize the climate change benefits that could be achieved from placing land under conservation easements.