An Ohio conservation program makes protecting the state’s forests more profitable

David Funk walks through one of his wooded properties in Athens County. He's actively managing his forest to capture more carbon.

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March 21, 2025

In a swampy wooded area in Athens County, David Funk moves swiftly past sycamores coming-of-age, and the frogs belting below them, to a small stand of walnut trees.

With the snip of his pruning shears, he clears off a low-hanging branch. It may seem destructive, but it’s a part of Funk’s forest management plan.

“We could easily cut all of these lower limbs,” Funk said, rattling the lesser limbs. “Then give it five years and the tree will seal those wounds. It'll be smooth and just a beautiful growing tree.”

David Funk prunes a walnut tree on his property.

Maintenance like this ensures his forest will be healthy and attractive for future generations – a goal that aligns with the Nature Conservancy in Ohio’s Family Forest Carbon Program (FFCP), which launched in the state a year ago.

The vast majority of Ohio forestland is privately-owned. While many owners may be tempted to cut and sell trees in the state’s commercial timber market, the FFCP outlines a different path forward. The conservation program pays private landowners to protect their forest and capture more carbon.

Reviving Ohio’s forests

Funk was the first landowner in the state to enroll in the program. Sustainable Forestry Director Tom Rooney said each participant is guided on how to best care for their individual forest.

The vast majority of Ohio's forest land is privately owned. The USDA surveyed the land in 2014.

“Most folks who own woods, they sort of wanna do what's best for their land,” Rooney said. “But, at the same time, there's not really a written down plan. There's often no contact with natural resources professionals who can help them.”

The conservation program changes that: Professional foresters, with expertise on clearing invasives, managing wildlife and protecting woodland, are connected to private landowners, who own more than 80% of the state’s forests.

These landowners are key to helping Ohio regain lost forestland, Rooney said. When European settlers arrived in Ohio, trees covered an estimated 95% of the state. By the turn of the 20th century, much of the land was cleared to make way for agriculture and industry.

Today, only around 30% of Ohio is forested.

“If we're gonna do effective forest conservation in Ohio, it needs to engage and incentivize those private landowners because they're the ones that own most of the forest,” Rooney said.

Increasing carbon capture

Program participants promise not to repeat that history. They can’t cut more than a fourth of the trees on their enrolled acres. If they do log, they have to be intentional about the age, size and species of the trees they chop.

“We know that the practices that we sort of specified [in this program] are gonna result in a forest that's gonna be healthier 10 years from now and 20 years from now,” Rooney said.

Plus, the practices allow the forests to sequester more carbon. The program helps to store an additional ton of carbon per acre per year, according to Rooney.

That opens up a new stream of revenue for the landowners. Through the program, landowners can sell carbon credits to large companies who want to offset their emissions. The conservancy pays landowners $230 for each acre they protect for at least 20 years.

That may sound like a small payout for a decades-long promise, but Ohio State University professor of natural resource economics Brent Sohngen said the program is bridging a crucial gap.

“If you're a small landowner, you would probably not be able to undertake all the legwork, the measurement, designing the management scheme … in order to generate the carbon credits and gain value from those,” Sohngen explained. “But working with an organization like the Nature Conservancy, it can actually help out a lot.”

Cashing in on conservation

Landowners could probably make more money selling their timber in that twenty-year timeframe. But for environmentally-conscious landowners like Funk, the program offers a way to make some money without compromising their forest or navigating the complicated carbon market alone.

“I hope that the program continues to expand because it can really make a difference [for] those private owners that… maybe have to sell their timber to send their child to college or a medical expense,” Funk said. “This can maybe be a stopgap funding to hold off on having to make that decision.”

David Funk smiles in front of pine trees on his wooded property. He's the first private landowner in Ohio to participate in the state's Family Forest Carbon Program.

More than 40 Ohio forest-owners have found it worthwhile so far. They've enrolled more than 5,000 acres in 15 Ohio counties, according to Rooney.

But, for Funk, the credits are just a bonus. He’s more focused on what his burgeoning forest could become.

“It's just really wanting to be clean woods, natural, traditional oak hickory, or mixed hardwoods. So that people can walk and just really enjoy mature woodlands,” he said.

The paycheck may be small, but he can put it right back into making that dream a reality.