2023-24 Learning Exchange Series: Translating science into practice through forest certification to address the co-occurring climate and biodiversity crises

March 13, 2024

In this webinar, Lauren Cooper and Healy Hamilton present "Translating science into practice through forest certification to address the co-occurring climate and biodiversity crises."

Title

Translating science into practice through forest certification to address the co-occurring climate and biodiversity crises

Speakers

Lauren Cooper, Chief Conservation Officer, SFI

Lauren heads the SFI Conservation Pillar, providing conservation leadership internally as well as externally to our network of resource professionals, landowners, educators, local communities, Indigenous Peoples, and governments. She develops best management practices for climate-smart forestry and fire resiliency and awareness, leads SFI participation in collaborative efforts to conserve forested landscapes and integrates Indigenous knowledge into SFI conservation programs. Lauren founded the Forest Carbon and Climate Program at Michigan State University, and she has international experience working with Indigenous communities in Peru, Mexico, Ecuador, and the United States. Lauren has served as a convener, moderator, and facilitator in high-level climate events, engaged in numerous climate working groups and has developed climate curriculum, educational materials, and plans. She currently serves as a steering committee member with the Women’s Forest Congress and on the Forest-Climate Working Group. Lauren is passionate about building new relationships at the intersection of sustainability, forests, society, and climate.

Healy Hamilton, Chief Scientist, SFI

Dr. Healy Hamilton assumes her full-time role in April 2023. She will work collaboratively and strategically across SFI’s conservation pillar to support scaling conservation impact. Healy’s scientific work will further the role of sustainable forest management in species recovery, climate-smart forestry, and conservation outcomes. Healy will also serve as SFI’s conservation science liaison with the wider conservation and scientific community. She will support the SFI standards pillar on customer engagement related to conservation science and the SFI education pillar on engaging Project Learning Tree audiences. Healy currently serves as Chief Scientist for NatureServe, and she is an elected member of the Executive Committee for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature U.S. National Committee. Healy’s impressive track record of leading high-profile and impactful research projects includes developing the most comprehensive and detailed map of species extinction risk, in collaboration with the Environmental Systems Research Institute and The Nature Conservancy. Healy holds a PhD from the Department of Integrative Biology and Museum of Paleontology, at the University of California at Berkeley, and an MA in Environmental Studies from Yale University’s School of the Environment.

Description

Despite considerable debate regarding the degree to which market leakage has undermined the mitigation benefits associated with US forest carbon offsets, little has been done to evaluate what an appropriate value might be. This webinar explores results from two recent studies designed to meet that need. The first studies utilize a global model of timber markets to explore leakage across different levels of forest harvest deferral for a range of forest types and geographies. The second study focuses on the U.S. forest sector evaluating leakage differences in avoided emissions and removals within a voluntary offset market context. These studies provide a needed new look at levels of leakage and how methodology design might mitigate its effects.