Pennsylvania-based Finite Carbon inks deal with Lyme Timber's forestland investment arm to establish management project on 4,300 acres in Tennessee under Climate Action Reserve Forest Project Protocol

Pauline Vu

WAYNE, Pennsylvania , March 9, 2010 (press release) – Finite Carbon Corporation has signed an agreement with Lyme Brimstone Forest Company – a subsidiary of The Lyme Forest Fund, the forestland investment arm of The Lyme Timber Company – to develop an Improved Forest Management (IFM) project in Tennessee under the updated Climate Action Reserve (CAR) Forest Project Protocol.

Finite Carbon, which provides landowners with a single-source, end-to-end solution to create and monetize carbon offsets, submitted the project to CAR, which listed it on March 5.

The project – only the second IFM project outside of California and the first in the eastern part of the country to be listed under the new protocol – involves more than 4,300 acres of Brimstone Forest lands located in eastern Tennessee in the Cumberland Mountains near Oak Ridge. It is expected to generate several hundred thousand carbon offsets over the next 100 years.

“This is a great example of how institutional timberland owners can utilize carbon markets to meet their land management objectives,” said Finite Carbon President Scott Nissenbaum, who noted that “it is especially appropriate that The Lyme Timber Company, an innovator in conservation investment, is one of the first timberland owners outside of California to list an Improved Forest Management project with CAR.”

Said Thomas Morrow, managing director of The Lyme Forest Fund L.P.: “Finite Carbon’s experienced team are fully conversant with the protocols and process for development of forest carbon assets. In working with them, we expect this project to demonstrate that generating carbon offsets is a profitable addition to our land management strategy.”

While landowners in California have been eligible to receive carbon offsets for several years, CAR only recently completed a two-year public stakeholder process that enabled other U.S. landowners to participate.

“Before joining Finite Carbon,” explained Sterling Griffin, who is the company’s vice president of project development, “I was on the verification team for the first three projects listed in California, and was a member of the CAR workgroup tasked with expanding the eligibility of the protocol and lowering participation costs for landowners.

“After many months of dedicated work by CAR and all the members of the workgroup, I believe we successfully achieved those goals and the new protocol was adopted last fall,” Griffin continued. “With its expanded scope, we expect that more forest managers will recognize the opportunity to enroll their forestlands in projects that store and sequester atmospheric carbon through sustainable forestry practices.

“It’s very rewarding now to be on this side of the equation,” he added, “being able to help landowners such as Lyme to participate in the emerging forest carbon market.”

About Finite Carbon Corporation
Forestry and finance experts established Finite Carbon in 2009 to facilitate U.S. landowners’ participation in carbon offset markets. The company, which is solely focused on forest carbon and offers the most comprehensive forest carbon project development and commercialization service in the country, provides a single-source, end-to-end solution that includes all the in-house expertise and capital needed to take a landowner from a forest carbon inventory to selling offsets. The company is headquartered in Wayne, Pa., and has offices in San Francisco, Calif.; Lebanon, Ore.; and Cherry Creek, N.Y. For more information, please visit http://www.finitecarbon.com

About The Lyme Timber Company LP
The Lyme Timber Company LP is a private investment company dedicated to making high-quality timberland investments for institutional investors, families and individuals. Lyme has been investing in timberland for more than 30 years and is a leader in conservation investment, specializing in the acquisition and sustainable management of large forestland tracts. It is responsible for the management of some 446,000 acres located throughout the eastern United States, including the Northeast and the Appalachian region.

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