South Carolina forestland owners’ willingness to accept compensations for carbon sequestration

Abstract Background Carbon sequestration through recommended forest management practices is an ecosystem service that helps mitigate climate change and its impacts while generating carbon credits for forestland owners to sell in cap-and-trade programs. The California’s cap-and-trade program (California’s carbon market hereafter) allows forestland owners from any part of the contiguous United States to supply carbon credits to compliance entities. In this study, we estimate South Carolina (SC) private forestland owners’ willingness to accept compensations to participate in the California’s carbon market using a contingent valuation method. Results We estimate forestland owners’ mean willingness to accept as $67 per acre per year. Our results reveal higher probability of participation of forestland owners with interests in preserving forest ecosystems than those who do not. Additionally, forestland owners who trust in information about climate change from scientists or government are willing to participate more than those who do not. Conclusions Various factors hinder landowners’ ability to participate in carbon markets. Forestland owners in SC consider legislative uncertainty and long-time commitment as the main barriers to participation in California’s carbon market. From this research, average forestland tenure in SC is 27 years, which is far less than the 100-year time commitment of the California’s carbon market. Of those who agreed to participate, choosing between adopting and not adopting any of the three main forest management practices in the California’s carbon market: 28% are likely to adopt improved forest management (IFM) practices, 24% are likely to adopt reforestation due to understocked forestlands, and 14% are likely to adopt avoided conversion. In another development, the concept of aggregation has dominated discussions in the California’s carbon market of late. It is an advocacy to include small-scale forestlands in the California’s carbon market. To aggregate, different forestland owners will combine their forestlands to participate. We find that 79% of SC forestland owners are willing to aggregate to participate. However, this research is unable to determine how much total forestland is available in SC for carbon market. We recommend future research in the State on forestland owners’ participation in carbon market should consider evaluating forestland availability