8:45 a.m., Nov. 18, 2008----An important environmental symposium on carbon sequestration on farms and forestland was held Oct. 21 at the University of Delaware. The symposium's target audience was policy makers and non-profit organizations that may be stakeholders in developing carbon trading/offset programs in the Chesapeake Bay Region.

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The symposium was the result of a pledge made by Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner to the Chesapeake Bay Program's executive council.

Michael Scuse, chief of staff for Gov. Minner, opened the symposium, saying the “information gleaned today will help our farmers continue their on-going stewardship while at the same time help them economically.”

Noting that 46 percent of Delaware land is farmland and 30 percent is forestland, Scuse said, “We need to determine its potential to sequester carbon and how many metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents it represents. Many of our farmers are already using conservation and best management practices that can provide salable credits, for example: conservation tillage, conservation or riparian buffers, grazing land management, nutrient management planning, using biodiesel.”

Scuse said many farmers are open to making crop and land use changes that will increase their opportunity for salable credits “There are many forward looking, innovative farmers in Delaware,” he said. “We will reach out to them about carbon sequestration and trading. We can consider carbon storage to be a crop, a money maker.”

Presentations included:

How Do Farmland and Forest Land Sequester Carbon - Ron Follett, USDA Agricultural Research Service;

Creating, Measuring and Verifying Carbon Offsets - Lydia Olander, Duke University;

Carbon Offset Markets - Gia Schneider, EKO Asset Management Partners;

Water Quality Co-effects of Farm and Forest-based Greenhouse Gas Mitigation, AKA, What's in it for the Bay - Beth McGee, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Senior Regional Water Quality Scientist, and Doug Karlen, National Soil Tilth Lab;

Presentation on Carbon Footprint Evaluation Project at Maryland DNR - David Palange, Duke University; and

Potential Benefits to Landowners - Nick Dilks, Ecosystem Partners.

The program ended with a panel of policy makers discussing the topic, “Carbon Sequestration in the Chesapeake Bay Region, How to Make an Offset Program Work”.

Video footage of Scuse's remarks, the presentations and the panel discussion may be viewed at [http://ag.udel.edu/carbonseq/webcast_videos.html].

Presentations are also available for viewing and/or downloading as PDF files at [http://ag.udel.edu/carbonseq/presentations.html].

The symposium was sponsored by the Delaware Department of Agriculture, Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, University of Delaware College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Delaware Institute of Soil and Environmental Quality, Delaware Water Resources Center, U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Mid-Atlantic Water Program, Campbell Foundation, Delmarva Power, Conectiv Energy, Natural Resources Conservation Service, First State Resource Conservation and Development, and University of Delaware Center for Critical Zone Research.