RESTORING SUSTAINABLE FORESTS ON APPALACHIAN MINED LANDS FOR WOOD PRODUCTS, RENEWABLE ENERGY, CARBON SEQUESTRATION, AND OTHER ECOSYSTEM SERVICES

The overall purpose of this project is to evaluate the biological and economic feasibility of restoring high-quality forests on mined land, and to measure carbon sequestration and wood production benefits that would be achieved from forest restoration procedures. In this segment of work, our goal was to review methods for estimating tree survival, growth, yield and value of forests growing on surface mined land in the eastern coalfields of the USA, and to determine the extent to which carbon sequestration is influenced by these factors. Public Law 95-87, the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA), mandates that mined land be reclaimed in a fashion that renders the land at least as productive after mining as it was before mining. In the central Appalachian region, where prime farmland and economic development opportunities for mined land are scarce, the most practical land use choices are hayland/pasture, wildlife habitat, or forest land. Since 1977, the majority of mined land has been reclaimed as hayland/pasture or wildlife habitat, which is less expensive to reclaim than forest land, since there are no tree planting costs. As a result, there are now hundreds of thousands of hectares of grasslands and scrublands in various stages of natural succession located throughout otherwise forested mountains in the U.S. A literature review was done to develop the basis for an economic feasibility study of a range of land-use conversion scenarios. Procedures were developed for both mixed hardwoods and white pine under a set of low product prices and under a set of high product prices. Economic feasibility is based on land expectation values. Further, our review shows that three types of incentive schemes might be important: (1) lump sum payment at planting (and equivalent series of annual payments); (2) revenue incentive at harvest; and (3) benefit based on carbon volume