Marin’s efforts lead to healthy soil regs
Buoyed by innovative environmental practices created by the Marin Carbon Project, Congressman Jared Huffman introduced the Healthy Soils and Rangelands Solution Act — legislation that would direct federal land managers to rigorously evaluate how to increase the amount of carbon captured on public lands.
“This legislation holds significant promise for advancing the health of American soils, and represents a triple-win; for working lands, for producers and consumers, and for the climate,” said John Wick, co-founder of the Marin Carbon Project.
The Marin Carbon Project is a collaboration of Marin agricultural institutions and producers, university researchers, county and federal agencies, and nonprofit organizations wanting to understand and explain the potential of enhanced carbon sequestration in Marin’s agricultural and rangelands soils.
Carbon sequestration is the process involved in “carbon capture” and the long-term storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide — and whether it can mitigate or defer global warming and avoid dangerous climate change.
The agency’s website says, “Our vision is for landowners and land managers of agricultural ecosystems to serve as stewards of soil health and to undertake carbon farming in a manner that can improve on-farm productivity and viability, enhance ecosystem functions, and stop and reverse climate change.”
In 2014, Huffman invited Wick to testify in Washington before a House Committee on Natural Resources subcommittee. Wick’s testimony focused on his work in Marin with a consortium of ranchers, land managers, researchers and others to improve rangeland productivity and sustainability through research and demonstration. At that 2014 hearing — the first in Congress to explore the topic — Huffman and bipartisan members of the committee explored options to improve public land management and soil carbon sequestration.
“We have a real opportunity to put our federal lands to work in the fight against climate change, using the groundbreaking scientific work already underway in Marin,” Huffman said. “Addressing climate change is the greatest imperative of our generation, and California has always been at the forefront of this fight. We have a real opportunity to put our federal lands to work in the fight against climate change, using the groundbreaking scientific work already underway in Marin and drawing from the important bipartisan support for these ideas that we’ve already demonstrated in Congress.”
The program has its supporters: “As we employ every possible tool to address the climate crisis, our shared public lands must be a part of the solution. This piece of legislation will help us be innovative in how we implement that solution,” said Wilderness Society Carbon Management Campaign Manager Josh Mantell.
The federal government, through the Natural Resources Conservation Service, has collaborated with the Marin Carbon Project and its local and regional partners to develop a model carbon farm planning process and evaluate carbon sequestration practices. Huffman’s new legislation would authorize a pilot program to study and report to Congress on projects for sequestering carbon through enhanced grazing practices, restoring degraded public lands including rangelands and forests, and the application of composts.
Changes in agricultural practices can facilitate carbon sequestration using cost-neutral and even cost-negative approaches. Recent studies have determined that changes in grazing practices, too, can enhance soil root mass carbon capture by 35-75 percent, allowing more productive ranching and grazing to occur.
Earlier this year, Huffman introduced the “Keep It in the Ground Act” to reduce carbon emissions and our nation’s addiction to fossil fuels by permanently barring new fossil fuel leases on all federal public lands and in federal waters.
“Healthy, resilient working lands are key to sustainable food production and carbon farming is integral to that. On our local ranches we see the results: Sequestered carbon, yes, but also taller grasses, better soil moisture retention, and an overall healthier, more profitable working landscape. The opportunity for impact — on climate change and food production — if implemented on public lands across the country is tremendous and one we cannot afford to miss out on,” said Jamison Watts, executive director of the Marin Agricultural Land Trust.
Source: by Chris Rooney
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