Wild Thyme Farm is a participant in a pilot project of the NW Neutral™ Carbon Emissions Offset Program.
Wild Thyme Farm's 100 acre family-owned forest was enrolled in a pilot project to help develop Northwest Natural Resource Group's (NNRG) NW Neutral program.
Wild Thyme Farm is 150 acres of forests, pastures, gardens, orchards and streams, showcasing an evolving model of wild forest management, permaculture, agroforestry and biological diversity. Primary objective is creating visionary landscapes that work, growing value for generations. Active forest management enhances forest health and diversity, local economic value and carbon sequestration.
Wild Thyme Farm
Forest Carbon
Offset Program
2:23 minute video summarizing the forest carbon model and carbon offset program.
The property of Wild Thyme was established as a farm around 1909. The original farm owners did not actively manage the forest and the old growth Douglas Fir was cut over time in the early 1900s. Patch clear-cutting of the second-growth timber occurred between 1967 and 1985 on 90% of the forest landscape. The current owners acquired the property in 1987, started developing the infrastructure and agricultural landscape, then began active forest management in 1997.
“Wild Thyme Farm is proud to be a partner in NW Neutral’s pioneering Carbon Offset Program that rewards exceptional forestry and promotes long term, highly productive forest landscapes,” says John Henrikson, co-owner and forest manager. “Wild forest management is maintaining our forest in the most natural and vigorous condition possible. Natural forestry allows high quality trees to grow to maturity. Timber is harvested from suppressed, damaged and downed trees.The ultimate objective is an ecosystem dominated by big trees with structural and biological diversity, while providing steady income from high quality, selectively harvested timber - attuned to nature’s own culling process.”
The 100 acre forest is currently managed according to FSC guidelines. The NW Neutral Carbon Model evaluates carbon benefits that can be generated by this improved forest management above and beyond ‘business as usual’ of the conventional short term rotation model.
The forest currently contains over 2 million board feet of timber in Red Alder, Douglas Fir, Big Leaf Maple, Western Red Cedar, Western Hemlock and Grand Fir. A carbon model conservatively estimated the current live mean carbon stock at 45 tons of carbon per acre (165 tons of CO2 equivalent per acre.)
By maintaining an FSC based management system, vs. employing a conventional short-rotation clear cut approach, models estimate approximately 6,500 tons of carbon (24,000 tons CO2) will be conserved in the Wild Thyme Farm’s forest over a 100 year timeframe.
“If public and private stakeholders manage forests for carbon sequestration, these healthy working forests will capture vast amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide and help us achieve planetary climate goals by 2050,” explains Robert Henrikson, co-owner of the Wild Thyme Farm. “Globally forest owners have had difficulties gaining access to carbon markets, and have not been recognized for their contribution to reducing atmospheric carbon buildup. NW Neutral is the first program that connects carbon market buyers directly to forest owners in the Pacific Northwest, providing economic incentives for better forest management.”
