Finding Opportunities Within USDA Programs to Reduce GHG Emissions and Increase Carbon Sequestration
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The USDA Northern Forests Climate Hub (NFCH) and the Forest-Climate Working Group (FCWG) held a series of two workshops designed to identify specific opportunities within USDA programs to explicitly support greenhouse gas mitigation in the forest sector. The first workshop (Perspectives from the Field) gathered suggestions and ideas from field practitioners familiar with using USDA programs to support forest carbon benefits. The second workshop (Finding USDA Programmatic GHG Mitigation Opportunities) invited USDA Program leads and representatives to develop specific suggestions on modifications to USDA Programs that could assist in these efforts. The final outcome was a series of twelve ideas from USDA Program leads and representatives that took into account input from the field, and outlined specific needs for each idea. These twelve are listed below and summarized more completely in the Workshop summary section description (p 7).