Today, Appalachian Voices released a new white paper, “Reforesting Mine Lands Through the Carbon Market: One Nature-Based Solution for Two Deep Challenges” to explore how carbon offset markets could help reforest mine land in Central Appalachia. A webinar next Wednesday, Sept. 20, will present key findings from the report and explore applications of a reforestation project on former mine lands with the carbon offset market.
Imagine a landscape that, 10 years ago, was a moonscape mountaintop removal coal mine and is now carefully managed as a large-scale working forest growing trees to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and combat climate change. Appalachian Voices is exploring making this vision a reality in the years to come through a reforestation project that engages with the emerging carbon offset market.
More than one million acres across Appalachia have been disturbed by surface coal mining. These formerly mined lands offer many challenges, but could also become focal points for economic development and reforestation.
By Rachel Ellen Simon Nathan Hall was born in the mountains of eastern Kentucky, surrounded by lush hardwood forests, cool trout streams and barren moonscapes — the latter courtesy of mountaintop removal coal mining. “It was all around me, in…
