Overview

Forest Resource Trust Fact Sheet (pdf)

Advisory Committee

In 2006, the Board of Forestry expressed continued support for the Trust by directing the department to reconvene the Forest Resource Trust Advisory Committee (FRTAC). It directed the committee to review the program and identify and recommend actions to improve its vitality, and to work with the department to simplify the process and make the program more attractive to landowners.

New rules were recommended by the Committee and adopted by the Board effective January 11, 2007. The committee also developed House Bill 2293 which addresses barriers preventing broader use of the Forest Resource Trust by creating new and amending existing provisions of the Forest Resource Trust statutes to incorporate efficiency, effectiveness and innovation in Forest Resource Trust programs.   

To learn more about the advisory committee, its members, meeting dates and times, go here.

Investing in Tomorrow's Forests Today

The Oregon Forest Resource Trust is a way to invest in one of Oregon’s most underutilized assets – the vast and unrealized potential of thousands of acres of widely scattered, underproducing forestland. Underproducing lands are lands that once had forests, or are capable of growing forests, but currently not occupied by a manageable stand of trees or seedlings. These are areas that might have been converted to farm or pasture, burned over by forest fires or poorly managed prior to the passing of the Oregon Forest Practices Act. Lands requiring reforestation following timber harvest are not eligible.

The 1993 Oregon Legislature established the Forest Resource Trust – the first program of its kind in the country. The legislature created the trust based on the recommendations of bankers, forestry analysts, private forestland owners, environmental organizations and public agencies – a group who came together in 1991 under the direction and inspiration of Secretary of State Phil Keisling. Lands reforested through the Forest Resource Trust provide many environmental, social and economic benefits to Oregon such as soil conservation, clean water, fish and wildlife habitat, future timber availability, scenic quality, job opportunities and recreation.

In 1999, $1.5 million dollars of carbon dioxide emission reduction offset monies were placed into the Forest Resource Trust by the Klamath Cogeneration Project. The idea is that the new forests created under the Forest Resource Trust remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow (as trees sequester carbon dioxide during photosynthesis and store the carbon in forest biomass and wood products), thus offsetting a portion of the cogeneration project’s carbon dioxide emissions. By placing these funds in the Forest Resource Trust so that they can be used to assist landowners in creating new forests, the cogeneration project gets credit for the emission reduction accomplishments of these forests.

At the center of the trust’s success is the willing participation of non-industrial private landowners owning 10 to 5,000 acres of eligible underproducing forestland or up to 15,000 acres of low site underproducing forestland. In exchange for the direct payment of stand-establishment costs and favorable financial terms such as simple interest and repayment requirements only tied to profitable timber harvest, participating landowners release their rights to the carbon dioxide emission reduction offsets accruing to the newly established forest. The State Forester can then market these offsets as a means to raise additional funds for the Forest Resource Trust. Landowners choose when and if to harvest and if there is no harvest after 200 years the forest is free and clear of the trust contract. Landowners are encouraged to grow and manage healthy, vibrant forests and have the option to buyout of the trust contract at anytime by repaying trust costs plus 4 percent simple interest. Payments from buyouts are reinvested into the trust to reforest even more underproducing forestland.

More information on forestry carbon offsets is available here. For specific information on the Forest Resource Trust as a carbon dioxide emission offset program, see the article below: 

• Carbon Sequestration - A Working Example in Oregon (pdf)
  An article by James F. Cathcart, Ph.D. reprinted with permission from the
  Journal of Forestry (vol.98, no.9, pp. 32-37) published by the Society of American Foresters.