I don’t see it the same. Im pretty sure it doesn’t say I can only enroll if I intend on cutting this cycle. I bet I could call them and say I don’t plan on cutting for 10 years, will you accept my property and they would say sure. They are just selling some mumbo jumbo green goodwill to corporations so why do they care what the landowners intentions are, just the execution of not cutting. Plus they give you an out if you decide to cut, they simply don’t pay you for that acreage. I think it’s a fine program from landowners who want to take advantage of some easy money…well as long as they pay at the end!
NCX doesn’t exist as a company because you sell them your pledge to defer harvest. They exist because companies BUY these harvest deferrals from them. If NCX isn’t actually buying genuine harvest deferrals, then what can they possibly be selling? If their customers (buyers) catch wind of widespread indifference by NCX on which properties they buy from, then NCX won’t be in business long, and the real merchantable timber owners are the ones that are hurt!
Totally, I just think they would be wading into some unprovable territory by assuming someone’s intentions. All someone has to say is yes I was going to cut but your deal was too enticing.
I guess I cant figure out how they would think paying someone $2-3k would offset a timber harvest if they truly planned on it? In some areas that is an acre of harvested timber. Surely they operate under the assumption that this is a collection of acres to package for corporate goodwill and not an actual deterrent for timber harvest? It’s a numbers game for them, get as many acres under some arbitrary carbon offset algorithm they made up and then sell it so a board can print it in their annual report. Hell maybe I’m dead wrong and people are actually holding off for a cycle because of this carrot but those number don’t work to me…err I mean that is exactly why I did it!
I'll pass along a comment made by a poster on the farming forum last month. A topic that comes up frequently is the carbon pipelines. This fella was at a conference in KC "for thinking outside the box." They were told to be supportive of the Summit CO2 pipeline, by a millionaire representing other millionaires in a billionaire company. They were having rounds afterward in the hallway, and the presenter representing Summit didn't care for any of the arguments. His final statement was this: "We have to position ourselves to extract artificial value from Governmental Policy not fundamental science… There are trillions of dollars on the table via Governmental policy." The guy was pretty unhappy that we're being sold a project where the elite get rich on easy Govt money stemming from socialist policy and not true economic return. "Government is today's economic engine."
Not to get off on a tangent but I think that is exactly what is happening with wind and solar companies. In no way are these ventures profitable without the government subsidies, not to mention the large scale environmental disasters they present. But what are we expected to do…if someone is going to give us money most will take it no matter how ridiculous we feel the reason behind it is.
How does a few $k offset timber harvest? It doesn’t. It offsets harvest DEFERRAL for 12 months. This isn’t Turkish’s thoughts, this is econ 101 and it was also explicitly provided as an example on NCX’s site … up until about 9 months ago. I asked why it was taken down and wasn’t given a good answer. I believe the answer is because their offering isn’t coming close to what their example showed.
