NCSAF Luncheon Speaker Series

Thursday, July 21 at the Hall of States

Seeing Forests as a Filter for Clean Water: Using Incentives to Connect Forests, Water and Communities
View the Presentation in PDF

Todd Gartner, MF
Senior Associate, Conservation Incentives and Markets, World Resources Institute, Washington, DC, 20002

On Thursday, July 21, NCSAF will host a luncheon at the National Association of State Foresters office in the Hall of the States, Room 231, 444 N. Capitol Street, NW. Todd Gartner will discuss the current state of affairs for payments for water resources conservation in the context of ecosystem services.

Socializing and catching up will begin around 11:30 am, and the NCSAF chapter-update portion of the meeting will start around 11:45 am.  The talk will be from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm.  

This is a brown bag, so please bring your own lunch and beverages.

Todd Gartner is a Senior Associate for the World Resources Institute's People and Ecosystems Program. He focuses on place-based conservation incentives and market-based strategies, such as biodiversity offsets, payments for watershed services, and carbon markets, to achieve conservation objectives both domestically and abroad. Gartner has a M.F. from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a B.S. in finance from University of Maryland's Smith School of Business. He is also a Doris Duke Conservation Fellow, Switzer Environmental Fellow, Environmental Leadership Program Fellow, and Property and Environmental Research Center Fellow. Gartner's previous work included developing and running the conservation incentives program at the American Forest Foundation, fire ecology and eco-tourism research in Botswana and India, business consulting for the USDA Forest Service and several years as a corporate financial consultant.

Seeing Forests as a Filter for Clean Water: Using Incentives to Connect Forests, Water and Communities

Clean water often doesn't come cheap.  For the most part, communities and businesses rely on expensive water filtration infrastructure to ensure their clean water supplies.  But what if they could save money by protecting upstream forests in lieu of building new or expanding existing costly water treatment infrastructure?

The Crooked River watershed, over 80% forested and privately owned, directly affects the drinking water of Portland, ME. Sebago Lake is the primary water source for the Portland Water District, which serves 25 million gallons of water to nearly 200,000 people daily. The city of Portland currently does not need to filter its drinking water, having demonstrated to the EPA that the water meets federal requirements without filtration. If exurban development and forest loss continues unabated, however, the city may lose this waiver, which will necessitate investment in a filtration facility. A proactive investment in forests now will help Portland keep its waiver and avoid far more substantial filtration and treatment costs in the future. Because of the direct linkage between the Crooked River watershed and downstream users in Portland, the World Resources Institute and project partners are implementing a payment for watershed services initiative, including a green vs. grey infrastructure analysis, to quantify the benefits of forest protection and exploring connecting the buyers of ecosystem services, including the municipal utility, with the sellers of the services - the family woodland owners.  Now that decision-makers are focusing sharply on budgets and cost-effectiveness, the time has come to see a forest for the water, not just for the trees.  

Payments for watershed services provide landowners financial incentives to conserve, sustainably manage, and/or restore forests.  Such payments typically involve downstream beneficiaries paying upstream forest owners or forest managers.  

This presentation will focus on: prioritizing watersheds; supply side - Which acres are most important within priority watersheds?; demand drivers and beneficiary analysis; green vs. grey Analysis; making the business case; measuring the benefits; monitoring and verification; co-benefits and revenue streams; and expansion and replication.

Location:  Hall of the States (Rm. 231), located at 444 N. Capitol Street, NW near Union Station.  

RSVP:  There is no need to RSVP for the lunch, but please bring an ID, and arrive early to allow enough time for signing in and going through security to enter the building.