A national program backed by The Nature Conservancy is paying small landowners to manage their woodlands for the climate. Here's what it means for Long Island.
Somewhere in the Taconic Mountains east of Albany, 32 families who share a lake surrounded by 300 acres of forest are getting paid to do something remarkably simple: keep the trees standing and take care of them.
They're enrolled in the Family Forest Carbon Program, a joint initiative of The Nature Conservancy and the American Forest Foundation that has quietly become one of the most credible efforts in the country to connect private landowners with the carbon market. Since launching in 2020, the program has enrolled over 200,000 acres across 20 states — including more than 20,000 acres in New York — and recently hit a milestone that should get the attention of anyone who cares about conservation on Long Island.
How It Works
The premise is straightforward. Families and individuals own roughly 57% of New York's 18 million acres of forestland — more than the federal government, more than the state, more than the timber industry. Most of these landowners want to do right by their land, but they face rising property taxes, invasive species, storm damage, and limited access to professional forestry advice. When money gets tight, selling timber or selling the land outright often becomes the default.
The Family Forest Carbon Program offers an alternative. Landowners with at least 30 acres of qualifying woodland can enroll for a 20-year period. In exchange for keeping their forest intact and following a management plan developed by a professional forester, they receive $10 to $15 per acre annually. The program handles the carbon accounting, verification, and credit sales — the landowner doesn't need to navigate the carbon market at all.
The carbon credits generated are verified by Verra under its Verified Carbon Standard and carry the Core Carbon Principles label from the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market — the closest thing to a gold standard in an industry that has struggled with credibility. Corporate buyers like REI purchase the credits to offset their emissions.
A Word About Who's Behind It
The American Forest Foundation deserves a transparent look. The organization traces its roots to 1941, when Weyerhaeuser — one of the largest timber companies in the world — dedicated the nation's first "tree farm" in Washington State. For decades, AFF operated as the nonprofit arm of forest industry trade associations, and its historical partners included Sierra Pacific, Pacific Lumber, and Boise Cascade.
American Forest Foundation
That history matters. But AFF has evolved considerably, and the Family Forest Carbon Program is arguably the strongest evidence of that evolution. The program was co-developed with The Nature Conservancy — the world's largest conservation organization, which has maintained its Long Island chapter since 1954. TNC's involvement isn't decorative; they co-authored the carbon accounting methodology, employ the foresters who work directly with landowners, and stake their reputation on the program's integrity. The IC-VCM certification adds an independent layer of quality assurance that didn't exist when the voluntary carbon market was a free-for-all.
This is a case where the origins warrant awareness, but the current work stands on its own merits.
What This Means for Long Island
Long Island's forest landscape is different from upstate New York. We don't have sprawling family-owned timber tracts. What we have is the 106,000-acre Central Pine Barrens — already publicly protected since 1993 — and a patchwork of smaller preserved woodlands managed by organizations that are doing extraordinary conservation work with limited resources.
The North Shore Land Alliance manages 16 preserves and over 132 acres of forest, meadows, and wetlands. Peconic Land Trust has conserved nearly 14,000 acres since 1983, protecting forested lands for habitat and carbon sequestration. The Long Island Pine Barrens Society stewards one of the most ecologically significant pitch pine-oak forests on the East Coast. ReWild Long Island is focused on habitat restoration. And in a notable recent development, the Long Island Conservation Alliance became a certified land trust in June 2026, expanding its capacity to accept conservation easements and protect properties across Nassau, Suffolk, Queens, and Brooklyn.
Most Long Island landowners won't meet the FFCP's 30-acre minimum. But the underlying model — aggregating small properties under a shared methodology, handling the verification complexity centrally, and channeling carbon market revenue back to the people actually caring for the land — is exactly the kind of innovation that Long Island's land trusts could adapt.
New York State is already investing in this direction. The DEC's Forest Conservation Easements for Land Trusts program has $1.35 million available in its current round, with applications due August 13, 2026. The Nature Conservancy's Climate Resilience Grant Program is offering up to $50,000 per project for conservation and climate adaptation work across Long Island. These funding streams, combined with the FFCP model, suggest a path where even Long Island's fragmented, smaller-scale woodlands could participate in the growing market for verified conservation outcomes.
The Bigger Picture
There are roughly 290 million acres of family-owned forest in the United States. Most of it is managed by people who inherited it, love it, and aren't sure how to afford keeping it. Programs like FFCP don't solve every problem, but they represent something genuinely new: a way for small landowners to benefit from the economic value of standing forests without cutting them down.
Long Island's land trusts are already doing this work on tight budgets and volunteer power. Hopefully the funding mechanisms and carbon market infrastructure are finally catching up to them.
The Family Forest Carbon Program is currently enrolling landowners in New York with 30+ acres of qualifying forest. To check eligibility, visit familyforestcarbon.org.
To support forest conservation on Long Island, connect with The Nature Conservancy – Long Island, North Shore Land Alliance, Peconic Land Trust, Long Island Pine Barrens Society, or Long Island Conservation Alliance.
