This methodology was never adopted for use by ACR.  The expert Peer Review panel identified methodological issues that could not be rectified at the time, which prevented recommendation of adoption by ACR.

Methodology History

In 2015, the author team of Drs. Spencer Plumb and Katharine Woods (Sagebrush and Pine Consulting, Lab, LLC, and funded by the National Forest Foundation and its partners) submitted to ACR for consideration the carbon accounting methodology, “Southwestern Forest Restoration: Reduced Emissions from Decreased Wildfire Severity and Forest Conversion”. The methodology proposed a carbon accounting framework for the measurement, monitoring, reporting and verification of avoided GHG emissions from reduced risk of high severity fire through fuels reduction treatment and continued GHG sequestration by remaining forests, post-treatment.

ACR followed the process for development, review and adoption of new carbon offset accounting methodologies defined in the ACR Standard v.4.0 (Chapter 7). ACR completed internal review of the draft methodology in early 2016 and public comment was initiated during summer/autumn 2016. The complete public comment log, author team responses and the methodology draft resulting from public comment are available below. A panel of experts in the fields of forest fire science, forest management, forest carbon offset project development and verification, forestry carbon modeling and remote sensing was assembled with members from academia, government, NGO and private entities. The peer review panel began its initial review of the draft methodology in mid-2017. Although first of its kind and with many technical merits, ultimately, the review panel did not recommend adoption of the methodology by ACR, citing the concerns below among others:

• Insufficient parameter information to model fire and carbon stock
• Lack of accurate and conservative assessment of uncertainty
• Economic feasibility of projects and length of time before credits issued
• Frequency and magnitude of reversals and the impact to the buffer pool
• Additionality
• Consistency with ACR Standard 5.1 (now 6.0), ACR Improved Forest Management Methodology 1.3 and current Risk Mitigation Agreement and Buffer Pool Terms and Conditions

A summary of the review and the individual summaries of peer reviewers are available below.