Alaska DNR Forestry: Haines State Forest Resource Management Area- Opening Meeting May 8th 2024

Double explain that. And then lastly, we have Mr. Trevor Fulton, who is our DNR staff representative from large project office managing the carbon offset program for dnr. And so he has a presentation that will give you some detailed information about that. And following that, we will have an opportunity for everybody here or online to ask questions of any of the presenters. And so with that, I'm going to move forward and please hold your questions to the end and we'll move forward with Mr. Doble if you want to go ahead with your presentation, Trevor.

All right, I can do that. Geneva, before I start, did you want to do any housekeeping items for the. For the meeting?

Sure. I do have a couple of notes. Primarily, this meeting is recorded. So if folks are joining online and decide to turn their cameras on for questions, just be aware that your face will be a part of the public record. There are some features on your team's window if you're joining us online.

A little speech bubble with the word chat underneath will let you put text and conversation that our group online can see. So that's a great place to drop questions. And I'll have an eye on that throughout the meeting.

Let's see, you can raise your hand if you have a question and you're joining online and there's a little smiling face with the word react underneath. If you're feeling really enthusiastic about something, feel free to use a reaction to share your feelings. We'll ask everyone to keep their cameras turned off and their microphones muted unless you've been called out to ask a question.

And if you're on the telephone and you need to unmute your microphone to ask a question, the key to do that is dialing star six. And we'll touch back on that once we get started with the question and answer session.

I think that's all of my primary housekeeping points. And again, I'll have an eye on the chat to let Greg know if we've got any questions or let Trevor Fulton or Trevor Dobel know if questions come up as we move along. So thanks, everybody, for joining us. And Trevor, why don't you get started with the amendment process? All right, that sounds good.

I am going to briefly turn my camera on, but since learned in previous meetings, bandwidth issues can crop up. So again, we shouldn't. We can, we can have cameras on when we're presenting, but for the sake of everyone's bandwidth, we can, we can go cameraless if we. If we so choose. So good evening, everybody.

I am Trevor Dobell Carlson. I'm the forest planner Federal Programs Manager for the Alaska Division of Forestry and Fire Protection. And together with Geneva, who is the forest planner in Ketchikan, we will be guiding the process of amending the Haines State Forest Management Plan. And this is the opening meeting. It's the beginning of process to get that started.

And again, as Greg said, it's at the direction of the Commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources that directs us to make the state forests open for possible carbon offset projects.

So I'm going to just do a brief overview of the planning process and the amendment process and the timeline. Geneva will go into more details about some of the specific ways that we will seek feedback throughout the year. Throughout the 12 months to come. I'm going to briefly mention some of the things that Geneva will go into more depth on. So starting now will have opportunities for public engagement through a series of surveys.

And we will use that information that we gather over the course of the summer to learn how people value and use the Haines State Forest. Also throughout the summer, to go along with that, we will be preparing a draft of the Haines State Forest Management Plan. With that allow us to enter carbon offset market.

We will hold another public meeting online in the fall, likely online only, to talk about the surveys, the results of the surveys and update our progress on the plan amendment itself. We'll be working on the draft throughout the summer. We expect to be able to announce ahead of time through online public notice when we will open the comment period and the review period for this draft. And our goal is in mid December to open a 60 day public comment period. We realize that the opening of that comment period will be near the holiday season.

So with that nearly two month window, we hope you will have ample time to review the draft, compile your comments and then submit your comments. I think Geneva will go over this. There will be multiple ways that you can submit comments on the draft management plan. And if we have any question, if you have any questions about that, feel free to ask. Once that 60 day review period has ended in mid February, we will review and compile all the comments.

Finished editing based on the comments received, run through one more internal review and then we aim to have the final product signed by the Commissioner by mid April of 2025. This is a fairly quick time frame, but we are confident that we can work as a team to get this completed by many people. And if we do end up having to make any changes to the timeframe, the various website products that Geneva will talk about next is they're the primary means of communication. So we intend to have multiple ways to communicate with everyone interested, all the things that we're doing and any changes to the schedule that we might have to encounter. So with that, I think I'll turn it over to Geneva to take it away to show some of the products that we have for engaging everybody with the process and will be available online.

I'll monitor the chat and available through the presentation tonight to answer any questions. Thank you.

Okay, thanks, Trevor. For folks online, there is a link to our amendment webpage in the chat. It should be the first item that was entered into the chat. And for folks who are with us in person on the program, in your seat, there's a web address typed out. And for those of us who are super savvy with smart technology, there's a QR code you can scan that'll take you right there.

But I will go ahead and share my screen. So our folks online seeing an Internet browser.

Yes. Okay, thank you. So this is our newly created webpage. It specifically gives us information about the state Forest Plan amendment here in Haines. At the top of the page we'll keep updating with latest news.

And this, this section will have information about upcoming public meetings or releases of surveys or changes in the ways that you can communicate with us. So I'll just run through our different sections here. I'll probably spend the most time here on the how you can participate section. So this section starts with a schedule of public meetings that we'll have throughout the planning process. Right now we have the date specified for this meeting and we know we'll be meeting in mid October and we'll determine a date closer to then.

That'll be our next public meeting. And in probably December we'll have another meeting that will be a comment, likely a comment meeting. So this chart will be updated throughout the process and you can come back here to find opportunities to join meetings that are held online or information about the location and content of meetings that are scheduled in the future. In this process, we're really trying to emphasize input from folks like you all who are interested in in this process. So we have a few ways that we're working that into this process.

Because this isn't a full scrap and rebuild revision. We want to be really clear about what the scope of this project is and get information from you all about things that we're taking into consideration so that we can have kind of an equal balance of reflecting the comments that we receive or the input that we receive from you all. And we don't leave people feeling unheard in this process. So I'll scoot over to the survey maybe so throughout the summer we'll be releasing four surveys. Our goal is to have one come out at the beginning of each month now through August.

And these will all be open until the end of September for folks to submit answers on various topics that are relevant to this amendment.

These surveys, I really want to emphasize are not official public comments. This is information that we're gathering from the public and we'll be analyzing as we receive it and kind of presenting a summary in the fall to reflect back what we're hearing from you all and using that to help us make decisions in the future. So let's see this first survey. The topic is recreation. So we have three categories.

Development, commercial recreation, and then specific questions about the Mount Ripinski non motorized area. You can click each section to reveal the questions relevant to that and you are free to answer as many or as few of those questions as feel relevant to you.

We're also introducing a kind of an exciting option. This is an interactive map. And so again, all of these links are available on our website. But if we click this interactive map link, it'll pull you up to this page where you see the boundary of the state forest. You'll see the Bald Eagle Preserve is in the light green color.

We've got our forest roads marked in black. And if we zoom in a little bit further, you'll start to see the state forest units marked in orange. So that's what we see here. Make sure I'm not forgetting anything.

Okay, so as you keep zooming in, you'll see a series of numbers and letters appear extensively. That is the subunit title there. So we see 8 DRM. And if we move over to this information tab, that'll give an explanation of what those what that code means. So that's a representation of the unit subunit and the land classification.

So RM is Resource Management classified land. We also have forest land, Wildlife habitat and public Recreation classified lands. What's really cool about this map is that this is another way for you to add specific comments that are location based, essentially. So if you are panning around this map and it comes to your mind that there's something, a use or an observation that you've made in this forest that feels really important to share, then you can click on this edit button at the top of the screen and this areas of interest option will let you add a point to the map. Then you can choose a category.

If one of our surveys jogs your memory of something that you'd like to add. You can choose a category that would relate it back to that set of topics, or you can choose other if it's something totally new. And you can add information that you would like for us to know about that site on the map. And I'll have to move this so if you want to publish your map, you press Create, and if you change your mind, you click this back arrow and discard your edits. So one thing to note about the comments that are added to this interactive map is that any points you add here will be visible to anyone else who uses the map.

So we are welcoming any feedback that folks want to share, but do be aware that any other user will also be able to read your comment. And again, we'll review this throughout the summer and kind of factor this into some of our thought process as we're making decisions later on in the year.

So if I go back to our management plan page, their final section under the how you can participate heading is the public comment tab. So we haven't built it yet, but there will be a link here to an online comment portal, and this is a way that you'll be able to submit official public comments on the draft that we release for review at the end of the year. If you're not feeling like the online format is for you, then you're welcome to send comments by mail to our forestry office in Anchorage. Or we have an email address that's specific to this project that's listed in a couple of places on this website and on the handout that you have in your seat.

And I think before I move on from this section, I'll just say that all of these products are new for us, and so if you're having trouble using a survey or having trouble using the map, call me. My information is at the bottom of this page and we want to know if it's working or if it's not and how we can help. So as we move down page, we have a project overview that'll give us a little bit of history in the area and a map. We have a link to the current management plan and an outline for our planning process. So if you're curious about what to expect maybe a few months from now, referencing this list will maybe help you orient to where you are.

We have a frequently asked questions section which is a little scant now, but hopefully tonight will generate some content for us, and we'll be updating this throughout our process. And then at the bottom here we have contact Information for Trevor Dobell, Greg Palmieri, who's in the room here, and for me. So again, this is another spot where you can find that email address that we all have access to for specific comments or questions regarding this project.

With that, I will hand things over to Trevor Fulton. He's our carbon offset program manager in the Department of Natural Resources and he'll talk us through some basics of carbon offset projects.

Thanks, Geneva. Can you hear me okay? Yes, you sound great. Okay, I'll go ahead and turn my camera on just for a minute so everybody knows who they're talking to and then I'll go ahead and share my screen and jump right into the presentation.

So I wanted to start off by briefly thanking everybody for coming down tonight or for tuning in online or calling in for this presentation and for this overview of the state carbon offset program. My name is Trevor Fulton. I'm the carbon offset program manager for the Department of Natural Resources. And a little bit of background information about Meadow. I came into this newly created position last fall with 20 plus years of experience in public policy relating to natural resources, energy and public lands, including most recently working for the DNR Division of Forestry and Fire Protection where I focused on timber, forest and wildland fire management in the Director's office.

And before that I spent about a dozen years in the state legislature where I worked mostly as a natural resources policy Aiden. And prior to all of that I worked for the Division of Forestry as a wildland firefighter for many years. And I'm going to pause right there and make sure you can see the first page of my overview there.

Yes, gotcha. Great. Thanks robert.

So the carbon offset program is new and we're really still in the process of standing this program up. The enabling legislation, the Governor's SB 48 as Greg mentioned, was passed by the legislature at the end of May of 2023. So just shy of a year ago, funding became available in July of 23 and I was hired to stand up and manage the program just last September. Now the goal of the program is to utilize the carbon reduction benefits of our natural resources to generate new state revenue while creating other CO benefits. Things like improved water quality, wildlife habitat, access for hunting, fishing, subsistence recreation.

One of the other CO benefits will be projects that create reforestation and other regenerative activities. And really another big CO benefit will be just generally more active land management. And we'll do this all by creating nature based carbon offset projects that are managed to remove and store carbon from the atmosphere in a real and lasting way. So these Projects will generate what are called carbon offset credits. By purchasing those credits, companies effectively buy into a carbon reduction project and by doing so, they offset a portion of their greenhouse gas emissions and reduce their overall carbon footprint.

So I thought I'd start off here with a basic dictionary definition of a carbon offset. And it, it is a basic place to start. But sometimes basic is best when you're dealing with new and occasionally misunderstood concept like carbon offsetting. So according to the good old oed, carbon offset is a way for a company or person to reduce the level of carbon dioxide for which they are responsible by paying money to an organization that works to reduce the total amount produced in the world, for example, by planting trees. Now, as I mentioned before, really the basic idea is that a carbon emitter pays someone else to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

And the emitter then claims that production against their carbon footprint. And carbon offsets are measured in metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, where 1 offset equals 1 ton of carbon avoided or removed from the atmosphere. A couple of real life examples of what a ton of carbon looks like. A ton of carbon is what you would produce by driving a car about 2,500 miles or by taking a round trip flight from Anchorage to Seattle, slightly less than that from Southeast. Of course, the average American, by doing all the things that we do that directly and indirectly consume fossil fuels, creates about 16 tons of carbon per year.

Now, offsets are bought and sold on the global carbon offset markets, of which there are two basic types, the compliance market and the voluntary market. The slide's a little busy. Most of the stuff on the right is just extra information, so I hope you can see it. It's. Some of that text is a little small on my screen here, but I'll walk you through most of it here.

Now, the basis of the compliance market is government mandated emission limits for the amount of carbon companies are allowed to emit is limited by law. Now if you're an emitter under one of these compliance programs, you have to buy credits or what are called allowances in order to exceed that emissions cap. California's cap and trade program is sort of the classic example, but there are similar Systems in the EU, in parts of Canada and about 30 other jurisdictions around the world. I'm just telling you all, I'm sharing all this with you just to let you know this is not the type of market or program that the State of Alaska is entering into. The other type of market, the voluntary market, that's a market based approach where companies voluntarily set goals to reduce their emissions.

And this is the system that the state of Alaska is entering into with the carbon offset program. Now, the voluntary market is much smaller. It's roughly $2 billion market compared to the 86 billion dollar compliance market. But it's expected to grow rapidly and to at least quadruple over the next six to seven years, which really makes this a good time for Alaska to be entering into that market. Now, as you may have heard or maybe read, a lot of companies, in fact, as of 2023, 1/3 of all publicly traded companies worldwide have announced plans to be carbon neutral or net zero by 2030 or 2045 or whatever the date might be.

And one way, in some instances, the only way for companies to attain these emission reductions targets to attain carbon neutrality is with carbon offsets. And again, they're the backbone of the voluntary carbon market. So the takeaway here from this slide is that Alaska's carbon market is entirely voluntarily. It's not a cap and trade system, nor are we instituting any sort of carbon tax. There's, there's huge growth expected in the market, which makes this an opportunity time for Alaska to be standing up this program.

And finally, the market is basically based on companies being willing to invest in carbon reduction projects in order to attain their emissions reduction goals.

So what does one of these carbon offset projects look like? Well, this slide right here illustrates the, the life cycle of wine. Specifically a nature based project like the ones the carbon offset program allows DNR to undertake. Now, nature based means you're using natural processes to remove, reduce or avoid carbon emissions. Think planning and growing trees or growing sea kelp forests or restoring degraded land in a way that stores more carbon, carbon for the long term.

And this slide illustrates that basic idea and for one particular type of nature based project, and that's called an improved forest management project. Now an IFM improved forest management project is essentially a long term management commitment to grow trees older and larger, or to invest or excuse me, or to harvest less intensively in order to, to sequester more carbon. In essence, you're committing to maintaining or increasing carbon stocks on the landscape year over year. So let's walk through this life cycle real quickly here. Up at the top right, we have carbon being emitted into the atmosphere by looks like a power plant and an airline, two industries known to be large greenhouse gas emitters.

And below that we've got trees in a carbon offset project pulling carbon from the atmosphere through the process of photosynthesis and storing it long term in their trunks, roots and in the soil. And as we move along to the bottom left there, a carbon registry then verifies how much carbon those trees can remove and issues carbon offset credits based on the amount of carbon benefit produced by that project. And Again, with each one metric ton of CO2 being removed from the atmosphere, that equates one carbon offset credit. Finally, up at the top left there, company then buys those credits and uses them to offset their carbon emissions and partially balance out their carbon emissions ledger.

So what are some of the expected benefits of carbon offset projects for Alaska? First, and probably most importantly, we look forward to it being a new source of revenue for the state. With traditional state revenue generally in decline over the last 10 or so years, this is obviously not unimportant. Although we anticipate modest revenue initially, we hope to see that grow as projects develop across the landscape and as we tap further into Alaska's potential for carbon offsetting. Secondly, maximum use Article 8 of the State constitution encourages the development of our resources by making them available for maximum use consistent with the public interest.

But that doesn't just mean more money to the treasury. One of the goals of the carbon program is to develop property projects that complement existing industries, that maintain public access and use, and that provide other co benefits to communities and user groups. Next, we have compatibility with existing land and resource uses. We all know the concept of multiple uses, and that's managing lands in a way that balances various, sometimes competing uses to benefit present and future generations. Now carbon offsets are just one additional use among multiple uses.

Really, the carbon offset program is just a new way to do what DNR has always done, which is to manage for multiple uses in sustained yield and to maximize the use of our natural resources for the benefit of Alaskans. Another benefit is that carbon projects can have a positive environmental impact on by generating ecosystem benefits like wildlife habitat, improved biodiversity, more recreation opportunities, and maintaining water quality. And again, finally, while it isn't a benefit, it's worth mentioning that carbon projects don't lock up land. Things like general uses, hunting, fishing, subsistence recreation, mining, oil, gas, firewood harvest, renewable energy projects, other development activities, even limited sustainable timber harvest. All of those can continue in a project area.

So why the push for decarbonization? Where's the interest coming from for these carbon offsets? Let's start with the graph on the top right here, which shows total US greenhouse gas emissions by economic sector since 1990. As you can see, some have gone down, but most have remained static or up there. And part of that is because if you're in A difficult to bait business like power generation, or producing affordable fuel for heating and transportation, or even something like fish processing.

There's only so much you can do that's technologically or financially feasible to reduce your carbon emissions and to bend that curve. But what you can do is offset your carbon impact by investing in carbon reducing projects. Of course there's no mandate to do so, but it's something that shareholders and investors, thus companies are increasingly seeing as good business. Carbon offsetting is a practical and financially feasible alternative to reducing direct emissions, but it's also a real, measurable and meaningful way to reduce atmospheric carbon. How do we know that?

Because that's what's required by the carbon registries. And the carbon registries are the third party entities I talked about in the life cycle slide. Their job is to rigorously verify projects and to verify the carbon reduction benefits of those projects before issuing car carbon credits.

Which brings me to my second point on the slide here. The world is moving toward greater reporting and accountability for greenhouse gas emissions. The big stick approach to that that most people know about is California's cap and trade program, which is one of the mandated emission limits programs I talked about earlier.

In 30 other jurisdictions around the world are also mandating those reductions, including the entire European Union. Now, I'm not saying the US or Alaska will join those ranks anytime soon. Remember, we're only entering into voluntary carbon market. But mandated programs are out there and the trend toward them is real. Now, another example of a stick being used to push businesses toward great reporting and accountability comes from the sec, the securities and Exchange Commission, the federal agency with oversight over all publicly traded companies in the U.S. the SEC just recently adopted a rule requiring companies to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions along with their strategies for mitigating climate related risks.

This is kind of a big deal. It means that all publicly traded companies will have to report their emissions as well as their plans to mitigate climate related risks. And if companies are required to disclose greenhouse gas emissions, you can bet that's going to translate to a greater demand for carbon offsets. And then finally, consumers really increasingly want sustainability. When you go to buy a ticket on Alaska Airlines nowadays you can pay a little more to purchase carbon offsets and to reduce the carbon impacts of that flight.

It's not required, but it's an option and many people are opting to take it. Another example, lower 48 electric utilities have voluntary programs where ratepayers can spend a few dollars more a month to cover the costs of carbon offsetting. Again, not required, but the fact that consumers are willing to pay that extra premium is kind of telling. And then finally, when I was in the grocery store the other day, I saw a dozen of carbon neutral eggs. It costs three times as much as regular eggs, but if they're selling them in Anchorage in Fred Meyers and acreage, then there must be consumer interest, right?

Really, the only way to make an egg carbon neutral is to use carbon offsets. Now again, things like mandated emission limits, SEC rules and carbon neutral eggs, these are just a few examples of the direction that things are heading and why carbon offsets are of increasing interest.

And that free market interest in decarbonization is one of the reasons the governor introduced in the legislature passed SB 48 last year. SB 48 being bill that created the carbon offset program. But what was in SB8? What is it SB48 and what does it do? It basically allows the state to do two things.

It allows us to develop state led carbon offset projects on state lands. And under this scenario, the state creates its own carbon projects on our own land and generates revenue through the sale of carbon carbon project offsets. The second thing SB48 allows us to do sort of a second program is it allows us to lease state lands to third parties so they can develop their own carbon projects. Here a third party would do the work of developing the project and they would keep the offset revenue while compensating the state for the use of the land. In either case, the idea is to manage certain areas of state land for the long term, up to 55 years.

That's limited by the bill in a way that removes carbon from the atmosphere. And I should back up for just one second there to note that that leasing program doesn't pertain to the conversation surrounding the update or the amendment to the Haynes State Forest Management Plan. Leasing for those purposes wouldn't be allowed in the state. In our state forests.

The bill also requires project areas remain open to the public for generally allowed uses like hunting and fishing, as well as for other resource development. Bill provides a list of criteria the state must consider when evaluating carbon projects, including effects on the state, state and local economies and on mining, timber and other resource development sectors. It caps the amount of project revenue that can be paid for carbon project development services at 30%. When I say revenue that can be paid for carbon project development services, talking about the fact that many of these projects, for at least initially, for many of these projects, were probably going to be enlisting the aid of companies who develop these projects all over North America and have a lot of experience in them just because we don't have the staff in house or the capacity really to manage these large projects by ourselves. We'll still be managing them.

They'll just be helping us develop them, get them off the ground and get a registration process. So the bill, like I said, caps the amount of money that we can pay one of these, pays the caps the commission, we can pay one of these project development services one of these contractors to 30%, which means the state essentially receives the majority of the benefit for state projects on state grants. The bill also requires an annual report to the legislature. And finally, the bill bill dedicates 20% of revenues received from carbon offset sales to the renewable energy grant fund. The other 80% of revenue.

To the. State will be deposited into the state general fund where it will be legislature.

So that's the bill. And as I mentioned before, the program is still in development. We're still very much under construction and in the process of implementing the specifics of SB48 and the programs that we're creating in it. But once fully established, the program will include three offices in dnr. The Office of Project Management and Permitting has me, the carbon offset program Manager who serves as project leaders and coordinator for carbon projects undertaken by the state.

The Division of Mining, Land and Water will have the carbon leasing program, where third parties can lease state lands, develop their own carbon projects. And finally, last but not least, the Division of Forestry and Fire Protection will be updating state forest management plans. The reason we're all here right now to allow carbon projects to be an option in our state forest forests and later on, Division of Forestry will also be helping identify appropriate project areas for forest based projects. And right now, along with the Department of Law, we're all in the process of developing regulations to define and implement the specifics of the program. Now, once adopted, these regulations will provide the necessary framework for DNR to implement carbon projects on state lands.

They include the steps and criteria for identifying projects, for evaluating projects, to determine if they're in the state's best interests, or classifying lands to allow for carbon projects, and for registering projects to ensure they provide a real and measurable carbon reduction benefit. Those draft regulations were published on March 28th of this year and they were available for public comment until April 29, just a week and a half or so ago. If you're interested in taking a look at the proposed regulations, they're still available online at dnr.alaska.gov carbon you see the website address up there on the slide. And right now we're in the process of revising the draft regs to incorporate suggestions and feedback received during that corporate comment period. Once regulations are adopted, next steps for projects undertaken by the state will be to identify suitable project areas and begin the evaluation and registration process.

And that's a fairly lengthy process once the regulations are finalized, which I'll show you a timeline here. Next slide. We anticipate that the register feasibility and the valuation and the registration process and getting all the way through marketing and sales of those carbon offsets could take anywhere from 18 to 24 months. So it'll be a process getting there. And we're still still relatively early in that process.

As I said, this slide just shows a little more detail about the regulation process and where we're at in it. Need to go into too much detail here except to highlight the current stage we're at in the red bracket there which says finalization and adoption. But we're not quite there really. We're at the beginning of that finalization and adoption stage. And as I said, we're performing additional review following public comment.

And I also wanted to highlight the end goal of having regs finalized and enacted by mid year, maybe closer to the third quarter of the year, and to highlight the opportunities for public comment which are there in orange. Both of these opportunities have already passed and they include the initial scoping period which happened back in June and July, and the public comment period that just closed. Now this won't be the final opportunity for public comment for carbon offset projects. This is just the two that are highlighted up there were just for the regulations process. Additional public comment will be taken later when we're required to do a best interest finding for each individual project.

Just like we do for land leases, for oil and gas leases, for timber sales and just about at every other disposal of state interest. There's robust public notice and comment process involved in that. Just a quick side note, in the next couple of months, the DNR decline Division of Mining, Land and Water. Again, they're the office that's heading up the carbon leasing program. They'll be releasing an additional package of proposed regulations that will be specific to the carbon leasing program.

Again, that won't affect management of the Haines State Forest. But just so you're aware that that's coming down the pike as well.

Now, once we get through the regulations process, we'll begin the process of looking at and selecting specific project areas. Where are these likely to be? Really? Locations are going to depend on resource availability, on land use classifications and on the Specific types of projects that are eligible for crediting through a carbon registry. They could be just about anywhere on state lands.

But state forests are likely candidates since that's where we have the best data on timber inventory and other sort of information prerequisites needed to model carbon stocks. Project size, that'll vary as well. Possibly, you know, anywhere from a few thousand acres to a couple hundreds of thousands of acres. Now, in terms of forest based projects, the smallest project we have in Alaska, which is on Alaska Native Corporation land, the Alaska Native corporations have actually been standing up carbon offset projects on their lands since about 2000. So they're a little ahead of the game from where we're at.

But the smallest one that's been developed in Alaska thus far is about 7,000 acres. But project areas that were looked at earlier when we did an opportunity evaluation for the state and these areas were in the interior, they're in the Matsu Valley, and in Southeast, they were in the range of 75 to 100,000 acres, considerably bigger than the smallest at 7,000 acres. The one that was contemplated in southeast was about 75,000 acreage acres, which included combined areas from both the Haines State Forest and Southeast State Forest. Now keep in mind that 75,000 acres, it isn't locked up and it's not off limits public use. It's just 75 acres where a commitment is made to increasing or maintaining carbon stocks year over year.

And that was just something that was looked at in that evaluation in order to sort of get a sense on of what the carbon generation potential is out there. It's not anything that's written in stone or anything that we're full steam ahead on. Now as we start looking at what types of projects and where to develop them, we'll be looking for projects that complement and provide co benefits to other Alaska projects, sectors and communities. In other words, we'll be looking to grow the pie. And in order to do that, we'll be asking questions like is this project good for the state and local economies?

Is it good for local communities? Is it good for local user groups? Can a project help a company already operate operating in Alaska, or can it help attract new business to Alaska or create new jobs? Again, we'll be looking for how these projects can create not just new revenue, but also opportunity and co benefits.

Now, I mentioned that forestry based projects will be the initial focus or will likely be the initial focus because that's where we have the information. But we'll also be looking at range of other types of carbon projects. As well. First example up there is wildland fire. Not so much down in southeast, but in other parts of the state we have some of the largest fires in North America.

Alaska is known for our mega fires. Now, under these types of projects, offsets are based on reducing the severity of wildfires and the considerable greenhouse gas emissions that wildfires produce. Eligible activities include thinning tree stands, eliminating hazardous fuels, constructing pre planned fire breaks, and even conducting prescribed burns. The second example up there is what's called biochar. And with these types of projects, the offsets are based on turning biomass like wood or agricultural waste kind of stuff that would normally be left to decompose.

You turn that into a highly stable form of solid carbon known as biochar. And biochar is made by heating biomass at high temperatures in a low oxygen environment. Biochar also has an additional benefit of being used for agricultural industrial purposes, including to enhance the quality of soils, to remove pollutants from soil or wastewater as landfill cover, insulation or cement, asphalt or animal feed additive. Or it can be stored permanently in underground forest base or unused mines. Finally, marine carbon, also known as blue carbon, this would be the nature based use of ocean and coastal ecosystems to absorb and store carbon.

One method that's being studied involves growing kelp or other seed plants and taking it out to deep water and sinking it to the ocean floor where high pressures keep carbon sequestered for thousands of years. This is also known as sink to sequester. But right now that's very experimental and we're a long ways off from actually seeing projects that could tap into that resource. But you know, we're going to be keeping an eye on it because the state of Alaska manages 40,000 miles of coastline and means a lot of potential for these types of projects if they're shown to be feasible. But more research needs to be done.

So the takeaway here is that with a wide range of possible resource types out there, one of our goals with the program is to be open and flexible enough to maximize opportunities for Alaska as these markets continue to evolve and as new opportunities present themselves.

And that's the end of my presentation here, but I just wanted to briefly close with a couple of thoughts. Carbon offsetting is a relatively new concept. It's relatively new to the state and it's certainly new to communities like Haines that could see these projects in their backyard in the next couple years. But the department doesn't see it as a cause for alarm and hopes you don't as well. Because really the program is just a new way to do what DNR has always done, which is to manage for multiple uses and sustained yield and manage to maximize the use of our natural resources for the benefit of Alaskans.

The department plans to do these projects in a careful and considered way and with a lot of stakeholder and public involvement along every step. Good public engagement makes for good public policy. It's just not my two. That's not just my two cents. It's what's required of the department.

By authorizing this program, the people of Alaska, through the legislature, granted DNR the public license to create these projects on public lands. We intend to honor that trust with well considered, high integrity projects that work for and benefit nearby communities and businesses. So again, thank you all for your time. Thank you for your commitment to this process. My contact information is up there on the screen as well as the website address for program.

If anyone has any additional questions or is looking for more information, please feel free to reach out. That's, that's my job and my proverbial door is always open. So at this point, I guess I'll defer to Trevor to see how we want to handle questions, which I think that's what we're all really here for. Thank you very much. That was awesome.

Trevor, Geneva, I'll kick it to you. And Haynes.

Thanks, Trevor. And thank you, Trevor. So we'll open up for questions. I want to remind everyone online that you can drop your questions into the chat window if you'd like. And before I open it up to folks in the room, I want to give a chance to our participants who called in by phone to ask questions because y' all don't have a way to, to tell us that you'd like to ask a question.

So if you are on the phone, the combination to unmute yourself is STAR six. And do we have any questions from our phone number? Last four digits, 6320.

Okay. And what about our phone number ending in 9529? To unmute, press star 6.

Okay. So if folks online would like to ask questions, I'm using air quotes, but in person, feel free to raise your hand to let us know. And if folks in the room have questions, if you don't mind approaching the computer so that folks online can hear what you'd like to ask about. That sounds great. And I see a hand from Trevor Dobel.

Just a quick question. Do you have video capability?

I do. Oh, then we can see folks as they're asking questions too. Yeah, if you could. It's optional, but if you can turn it towards the audience, even just to see for a moment who is, who is present. That would be fantastic.

We're a little backlit with the big windows. Okay, that's good. You can, you can leave the video on or off if you wish. I just wanted to have a feeling for who was there tonight. Thank you.

Yeah, I have a question. Can you hear me? Okay, Yes, I have a couple of questions. Can you hear me? Yes, we got you.

This is Trevor. Yeah, I, I'm Tom Ely. I've lived in haines for about 37 years and I've always been involved in the chain state forest management and plans. And my question is how is this going to work with the five year timber harvest plan, which has been ongoing since the forest was created, setting aside areas for timber harvest and then putting them out to bid. And some of the areas that have been put out to bid for timber harvest probably have the highest value of carbon capture as well.

Is the state going to take a pause on the five year timber harvest plan because some of these areas may be used for carbon offset or how is this all going to kind of be brought into the management plan is my question.

And Trevor. This is Trevor Fulton. If, if Greg's available, since the five year schedule of timber sales is really a division of forestry tool, I'm going to let him respond to that if he's willing and then I'll add any color from the carbon offset perspective as needed. Yes, that would be great, Greg. Yeah, thanks.

So the five year forest management schedule will continue to be developed during this amendment process. We'll take a pause. So because the management plan is being amended, I won't be issuing one in this season, which is typically the time that I would. It'll come again in another two years. So at that point, hopefully we're going to have the regulations in place and a direction maybe have done some analysis with some of these service companies that Trevor Fulton has spoken about.

And this will give us a better understanding of how to apply that tool. But every acre on the forest that's available for timber sale is going to be available for carbon offset programs. And so like Mr. Fulton explained, the intention is to create the highest value for the state and the resources that they own on these lands that we manage. And so we'll be looking to do that in every opportunity that we can. And the five year forest management schedule will be the scoping opportunity to discuss that with the public as we implement the amendment of the plan on forward.

So the,.

This will be brought into the five year plan, the carbon offset. Yes, yes, we'll be discussing it as another section in that document.

Thank you. Absolutely.

Anybody else have a question here in the room?

Yes, this is Derek Pointsette. For the record, it sounds like this amendment for the carbon program is going. To involve a rewrite, basically a rewrite of the whole plan or potentially based on public comments. Is that, is that kind of what I'm hearing? It's not just an appendix or something that you're adding to the forest management plan.

It's going to. There's going to be significant changes throughout the plan. Most likely the changes to the plan will be specifically focused on the carbon offset program and developing the policy for that. In addition to that, there's going to be technical changes to the plan to update the plan for things that have changed. For example, there was a helicopter special use designation that was included, included in the plan in 2002, which was never authorized by the state.

That language wasn't completely removed from the management plan. And this caused some confusion over the last 20 some odd years in plan management. So technically we remove that section. For example, there'll be two other two or three other things that are different in the management plan specifically from before, but they're all technically related for clarity or consistency of policy from the beginning of the document to the end of the document and in fact will represent a comprehensive amendment to the plan. The plan is specifically being opened up for this process for the inclusion of the carbon offset program in policy language.

That being said, because of the fact that this is a management plan amendment. Also when the public review draft goes out to the public, the opportunities to comment on the entire plan are open to the public. And hopefully the process that we've developed thus far for public involvement is going to provide substantial quality information that will lead to a better production of a public draft. So the process that Geneva outline that we're trying to engage with the public over the course of the summer, with a follow up in the fall to analyze that data and present that data is a step in that direction to hopefully create public draft that's supported by the comments that we receive and the information that we can gather over the summer. And as you'll see if you go to the website, there's subject matter that's identified for each month and it's pertinent subject matter that broadly covers the entire document and its policy.

But along the way there should be opportunities, like Geneva explained, for comments on issues that are important that perhaps you don't feel like an Individual feels like we didn't represent specifically in one of our subject topics. And you'll be able to do that throughout, which will also be part of our analysis as we move forward. Hopefully preparing us to complete a public draft that's representative of those things and that'll be out theoretically. Hopefully our schedule is to have that out mid December, like Mr. Doble Carlson said, for a 60 day review instead of just a 30 day review. You because of the holiday season.

Because we want to meet the timeline that's been presented to us and we're going to continue to move forward at that pace to hopefully have the document signed by the commissioner and approved in April so management can begin.

Yeah, I just want to follow up. So that means there could be many amendments to the Pain State Forest plan besides just the carbon offset program. Is that. Well, I mean regarding recreation, regarding timber harvest, particular regarding use because I was involved, heavily involved in the 2002 planning process and it was a long, arduous process of dozens of meetings and hands. You know, the commissioner was here, you were here.

Right. So you certainly remember that, that process. So. But do you see this process being as involved as that 2002 revision or no? Well, certainly what we're trying to do is give everybody as much of an opportunity as we possibly can.

And we have a timeline for implementation and we think we can be successful. We do have public meetings scheduled during that 60 day period for both communities, Hanes and Clef one at that time, because we didn't want to prematurely schedule those. We wanted to give people an opportunity to review the public draft and have meaningful comment from those sessions in both communities as required, which is similar to what we did in the past in 2002. So what we've done that's different is instead of asking you all to come to public meetings and engage with us periodically over the course of the next four months, we've created this tool online to hopefully give everybody a more comfortable opportunity to comment, more leisurely opportunity to comment. One in which more people could engage freely on their own terms.

Time. And so with this new tool we're hoping to get, you know, substantial public comment and involvement in the process. But we won't end it there because we certainly don't know how much we're going to get. You know, I had no idea how many people were going to show up tonight or be online. We were hoping that, you know, more people would be engaged.

And so as we move forward, forward, we may be looking at more opportunities to engage with people so that Inclusion can occur. So we want to improve upon our interaction with the public over the course of the summer. We need to take advantage of this opportunity in a way that hopefully can be successful and gas gather some valuable information moving towards the development of our draft. So it's a little bit different structurally and how that was handled back then, this wasn't available at that time. And we're really trying to just take advantage of the technology because, you know, with this opportunity, with this website opportunity, we envision people, you know, are out fishing or hunting or whatever, they're doing subsistent gathering, you know, they're not going to have time to come into a public meeting and they may have a valuable opinion that they want to share.

Well, they get connected to the Internet for a day or something as they're passing through some service area and they decide that they're interested in doing this if they're aware of it and have the opportunity. As Geneva explained, you can participate in any one of the surveys that are available over the course of the summer. They'll be enrolled month by month, but through September 30th, you'll have an opportunity to go. If you jump on a jet, you're going somewhere and you're sitting in the airport here, you can go and take a quick survey on a topic that's important to you about Hayden State Forest Management and provide that meaningful input that, you know, maybe we had several public meetings in 2000 to try to capture. You know, this is an avenue that we're trying to make it happen in this process.

So this really is a full revision of the Haines State Forest Management Plan, just in a different way it's being proposed. Well, no, it's not a revision. It's an amendment, right?

Yeah, it's an update. The state is primarily wants to implement the carbon offset program because the legislature passed that. Yes, we're. Absolutely. Yeah, that's the main purpose.

But other aspects of the plan are also going to be considered. Well, well, absolutely. You know, we're always receptive to all public comments about the plan. Okay. And then there's.

There's absolutely an opening for everybody to comment about whatever it is that they're interested in commenting about. And that's what I was trying to explain. Throughout the entire process, there's opportunities for doing that, like the interactive map, for example. But even in the surveys themselves, there's places where you can contribute additional comments. But the idea with the survey is to develop an analysis of that data that can move us towards direction for creating the draft itself.

So all along the process, like I was saying already, there'll be an opportunity to comment on the issues or the points of matter that are important to an individual. Most importantly, at the public review draft point where the comments will be processed for the record in that manner. And then the state goes back to the table with those comments to prepare its final draft for review. So, which is identical to this for the process that we did before, except we have less, you know, in person public meetings. It just seems to be kind of under the radar.

I don't think most people in this community are aware right now that the Hant State Forest management plan is being advised. I mean, yeah, it's going to be news to people, I think. Yeah. And that's probably why nobody's here, because nobody knows what's going on. Yeah.

And so we're going to have to discuss opportunities to maybe do some more public involvement. And you know, I was thinking perhaps I'll do something on the radio or I'll speak, I will put something specifically in the paper. I think, you know, even though we did both of those things prior to this meeting, it may be prudent that we do some more of that to educate people on what's available on the website and how to interact to make sure that we get that kind of public involvement. Right. So, sure.

Yeah,.

Thanks.

Thank you. I can talk to you in person. Absolutely.

So our question from in the room. Oh, yeah, thanks. I think actually, this last bit that. Tom was mentioning last, how are you. Going to advertise the changes as you are asking for new samples on your survey?

How are you going to transmit that request on the public? Because as you see, there's not very many people here. And I just think that there needs. To be more. Information out to, you know, advise the public that they have the opportunity to comment.

One other question I have is what's an example of a third party carbon offset that you are going to be leasing to somebody? What? What's an example of that? Mr. Fulton, do you want to take that one? Did you hear that question?

I did. If I heard it correctly, he's asking for. Gentleman's asking for an example of a type of carbon offset project that might be undertaken by a third party who wants to lease a portion of state land through the carbon leasing program, Is that correct? That is correct. Okay, so options right now are going to be slightly limited for the carbon leasing program.

Mostly when I say limited, you know, the forest based projects that I talked about, the group forest management projects as well as reforest station projects in order to, in order to meet the registry requirements for those types of projects, you really have to have authority to manage the timber resource and we can't grant that through a lease. So those types of projects are going to be more or less off the table for a third party to conduct on these land. When the bill was drafted and introduced and passed, the example that was given would be more like, probably something more like a. Say there's a. Somebody has a piece of state land that they've leased for aquatic farming or other marine uses and they decide they want to generate some carbon offset credits.

They might want to develop a carbon offset project. If and when the project methodology is available through a registry. That would involve, you know, like the seek to sequester sort of concept that I talked about in the blue carbon section earlier, where they could, you know, essentially farm sea kelp. Sea kelp is a fantastic carbon sequester. It grows at a very rapid pace, but whether or not it sequesters it long enough and whether or not the, the idea or the concept of taking it out to deep water and sinking it really truly plays out, the research is still being conducted on that.

But that would be one example. There could be some opportunities involving biochar. We've had some third parties actually express interest in leasing state land in South Central and in the Mat Su area where they're interested in using essentially our beetle kill spruce up here and turning that into biochar. So that would be another example. So that answers the question.

Yeah, I'm sorry, biochar, does it require a tremendous amount of energy to make the process work?

Well, did you hear that now? I did hear the question. It is, it is a. It does require energy. Some of that energy can actually be provided by the fuel source.

If you're using butyl killed spruce, you can actually use that to power the process. As long as you're not generating more carbon by combusting that woody material or the agricultural waste to generate biochar, then you can claim that as what's called additionality and, and as a net carbon reduction. So a good question, but those types of projects are actually occurring in other parts of the world. There's a lot of interest in them because their term that's used to describe them is they're very durable. Once you actually generate that biochar, it stays in that form and it doesn't deteriorate for income literally thousands of years.

Places like Australia, they're undergoing some pretty massive efforts to reduce invasive species, invasive tree species and turn them into biochar. So if there's an opportunity for something like that in Alaska where we can take essentially a, you know, an undesirable product like the 1.9 million acres of butyl killed spruce we have up in South Central and in Mat Sue Valley, and if you can turn that into both carbon offsets as well as a value added product like biochar that can be used for agricultural, industrial purposes, it's kind of a win win. But that has yet to be played out. Just because Australia is doing it doesn't mean all the economics would work for Alaska. So we're looking forward to seeing how that, that might work up here.

Thank you. We hear from our online question.

Helen, did you have a question?

Yeah. Can you hear me? Yes. Oh, thank you. So my question is threefold.

How much is one offset trading for right now?

Another good question. It really depends on the resource that the project is based upon.

I assume, I'm going to assume that since everybody's in Haines there and this conversation has to do with the Haynes State Forest Management Plan amendment, that we're talking about forest based projects and improved forest management. Carbon offsets right now are trading for between 14 and $15 per ton of carbon. But if you're talking about biochar, that's fetching closer to 10 times and above that price. So 150 to $200 per credit. So it really varies on market interest and on what the underlying resource is.

Thank you. How many, how many tons would 1 acre of forest and Haynes yield?

So when we did that carbon opportunity evaluation that I mentioned earlier, where we looked at the resources throughout the state carbon generation potential might be, they did break it down for each of the three areas that they looked at improved forest management projects and that would be Tanah Valley State Forest up in the interior, some state forested land that isn't interstate. Forest Forest and Matsu Valley as well as, like I said, a combined, combined project that would involve acreage from both Haines and Southeast. So it's not purely Haines, but for the Haines and Southeast example, it was just over 18 credits over a 10 year period per acre.

And how much of this income would go to the Haynesboro?

Well, the provisions in SB48 that speak directly to the revenue generated from carbon offset credit sales, really there were only two requirements there. One, that 20% goes into the Renewable energy Grant Fund, which that money is distributed through Alaska Energy Authority and it's spent on renewable energy projects anywhere in the state. Through a competitive process. The other 80% goes into the state general fund and is available for appropriation for any use that the legislature really decides.

So to answer your question in must the legislation legislature decided they wanted to appropriate some of that money to the Haynesboro if there was anything in the bill that would specifically dedicate that money to the borough. Thank you.

Any other questions from anybody?

Okay, well it is usual. I'm sorry, can you run through the schedule again, the public comment schedule? So there's this like pre draft comment period. Then draft is going to be released and another comment just kind of go through that again. So.

Right. So tonight begins the process and then we'll have four months of surveys and information presented online through the website. And that will be focused on an October meeting where we'll explain the information that we gathered over the course of the summer and discuss that. And then we'll have the agency review draft that will go out in November, followed by the public review draft in December which will go out for 60 day review and public comment. And during that time period we'll have public meetings in both Hanes and Klukwan.

And then once we received, once we end that comment period in that review, we'll do a 30 day comment review response, reevaluate our management plan as it was written our amendment and move forward with creating a final document that present to the commission.

So we want to see a draft. Or anything, any new plan or any, anything like that until November. Yes, well December. The public will see it in December.

So if the Kingsborough government wants to comment or have input, that won't be till after the draft plan comes out. The borough of government or any individual can participate in any of the public. Opportunities filling out a survey. Like there's no like official way to send a commons. Well, we do as Geneva mentioned, that if, if none of these opportunities are suitable to anybody, there is always our email which is listed on the webpage where a person could submit a written comment at any time.

Well that's an opportunity to submit a written comment or you could mail them to the address and Anchorage and you can find that on the website as well.

So if you have a recommendation for group public interaction,. It's just a new process. How can we get the board, how can we get the word out better? We're used to like contentious meetings in Hanes where everybody stands up and yells at each other and then you know, you get a moment where you got 30 days to submit your letters in and then the draft comes out. Then Comment again and then it's over.

Yeah. So this is a different process, this. Is a different approach and it's different from 2002 as well. We're just trying to take advantage of the new technology.

I heard about was on Cage this. Twice all day yesterday and today, saying the time and place and all that. So it was, it was out there. I just think everybody didn't. There's three meetings, two.

Two different meeting snacks too. So yeah, I think that was part of the issue, Tom. But I, I agree it's challenging and we're learning and we're going to try to do better as we move forward. And like I said, you know, I'm considering my options already to try to get the word out so the people can get involved. And one of the reasons why we designed it this way with website was to make sure that we gave a lengthy enough time period so that as many people that could get involved did as have that opportunity rather than just, well, come and talk to us tonight and then you know, you have to catch up with me before we have the next public meeting or whatever if you're not around or you're out of town.

You know, the way we did it in the old days when we didn't have this opportunity. So we're hoping that we can take advantage of this and give people more of an opportunity even if we have to do better about getting the word out at this point to get people to understand that this website exists. I think there's options there that we try to explore and execute and hopefully word of mouth some people could. And how does this jive with the borough Comprehensive Plan that we're going through right now? It's interesting that they kind of overlap, but that process is kind of over.

Right. We've they end of April they got all the comments in and we'll see what they produce and if. What happens after that. But you know, the comprehensive plan is a document that the Division of Forestry and Policy is required to review to look for consistencies in our management approach. So that's really how the two documents work together.

Okay. So the state will be looking at the Bernie Comp Plan and developing this revision for the main state forest. Well, every time we develop a decision document we look at the other planning efforts that are made in the region. And in policy we're required to do that. So every forest land use plan and every best interest findings required to do that.

So when we put together a carbon offset project we'll be doing that. And of course I'm aware of the document because I've reviewed it and others are planning more than welcome to review as well as we move forward. So it can participate in a number of different ways. Yeah, I mean, it really seems that they're very integrated, both for the residents. It's put a lot of effort into.

Some of us have you into the comprehensive plan and Dane State Forest is part of the. Which is what the comprehensive plan is about. So. Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah, it'd be nice to see some, you know, overlapping cooperation. So it's not like you got one arm out here and one arm here. They're not connected. And based on what I've seen in the document that I reviewed, I do see that. So I'm encouraged there.

Okay, great. Are you considering university land mental health as well? No, absolutely not at all. Those lands are completely excluded in legislation from state forest management and therefore DoF has not no authority to manage those lands. Even if there's overlapping resources.

They manage their own resources for their trust organizations. They're completely different than public state lands. Okay. They're trust land organizations. And it's something that I won't go into details about now, but if you want to come by the office, I can go into more details about it, or you can call me at your leisure or you can go online and do a little research your own state and it'll explain it.

It's pretty complicated, but it's a completely different entity. You know, as far as I'm concerned in terms of forest management for this Haynes State Forest and the resource that we manage here and tenure that I've been on the forest, the Division of Forestry is constantly looking at ways to collaboratively work with both of those organizations to help them meet their goals within the parameters of the Haines State Forest management goals. Because of the fact that obviously those lands within the Haines State Forest, constantly, ever since I've been here, we've been making that effort. It's challenging because those entities are managed differently than by different authorities and also structurally different. For example, the University of Alaska is managed by a board that they come and go, those members come and go, and their individual perspectives change constantly.

So the land management entity that's dedicated employees that are hired to manage and administer the lands have to deal with that. And that creates tremendous amount of incontinenity. And so it's difficult. So when they. When we go to them, let's say, and try to collaborate on an effort to assist them reaching their goals while they're at the same time reaching Haynes State Forest Management goals.

It's challenging where those things meet few and far between.

What I understand reached out into the. Carbon offset end of things in terms. Of instead of coming in chainsaw all their property. I don't know, I thought maybe that. Might be an opportunity for you guys.

Maybe at some point to collaborate then. Because you're working down the same path and went, you know, ultimately I think that's. That's not unrealistic at all. How it comes to fruition is something I really can't comment on because we're two different entities. But conceptually, absolutely.

What do you think? Any other questions? Anybody? We've gone over our 8 o' clock time period, probably because we couldn't figure out a microphone for 10 minutes, but. Accounts for the audio clip.

I really appreciate everybody online and everybody here that showed up for this. And I hope that you spread the word as much as you possibly can. And I'll do my best to come up with ideas on how to get the word out too. Take the flyers, take an extra one if you want. The website information is on there.

Please share that. And we visit the website and contribute. That's what we're hoping for. Thank you all.