Mining News: News Nuggets: Chugach trades AK coal field for California carbon credits

The Nature Conservancy Jan. 26 announced a deal that secures the sale and permanent retirement of an Alaskan coal field, while ensuring long-term income for an Alaskan Native community. The deal will see the Chugach Alaska Corp., an Alaska Native regional corporation whose traditional lands stretch along the gulf of Alaska from the Kenai Peninsula to the Alaska Panhandle, sell the rights to its Bering River coal field to New Forests, a sustainable forestry and conservation investment manager. New Forests will retire those rights by transferring them to The Nature Conservancy and the Native Conservancy land trust, while generating revenue through the California cap-and-trade carbon market. "This novel investment structure will enable Chugach to manage the Bering River coal field and regional timberlands in a manner that delivers long-term financial security for the Chugach shareholder community as well as significant climate benefits,” said Brian Shillinglaw, director of New Forests’ United States investment programs. Situated on the eastern edge of Alaska’s Copper River delta about 50 miles southeast of Cordova, the Bering River coal field is in an ecosystem known for its glaciers, rivers, rainforest and a vast range of wildlife. As part of lands conveyed to Chugach under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, the coastal Native corporation received land and mineral rights covering much of the coal field in 1983. As part of its agreement with New Forests, Chugach will actively manage and maintain the land to retain high carbon stocks in the forests in exchange for the opportunity to sell carbon credits to businesses regulated under California’s greenhouse gas pollution reduction program. "As a community-owned organization, Chugach’s mission is to provide meaningful opportunities and benefits to our Alaska Native shareholders and descendants today and for generations to come,” said Chugach Senior Vice President of Energy and Resources Josie Hickel. “A coal sale and carbon offset project is a unique opportunity to deliver long-term, sustainable economic and financial value for our shareholders and region.” The coal rights were transferred in fee to The Nature Conservancy, a non-profit conservation organization, with a restrictive covenant against development held by the local, Native-Alaskan controlled Native Conservancy Land Trust. "This is a precedent-setting carbon conservation accomplishment,” said Dune Lankard, on behalf of the Native Conservancy Land Trust. “Preserving the Bering River and Carbon Mountain watersheds not only addresses climate change in a real way, but also protects the ancestral homelands of the Chugach shareholders and maintains our vibrant subsistence and commercial fishing way of life."

-Shane Lasley