Fig 1.
CSF theory examples in literature (a) and in applied practice (b).
Fig 2.
Survey responses from forest, forest product, conservation, and economic development organization professionals.
Level of agreement: 1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral or I don’t know, 4 = Agree, and 5 = Strongly Agree.
Fig 3.
Data 2018–2021 pre-course participant questionnaire for understanding forest carbon management, MSU forest carbon and climate program.
Level of agreement: 1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral or I don’t know, 4 = Agree, and 5 = Strongly Agree.
Fig 4.
Survey response data by Michigan Kalamazoo watershed farmland owners (2019).
Level of agreement: 1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral or I don’t know, 4 = Agree, and 5 = Strongly Agree.
Table 1.
2018 US wood material data with estimated equivalent forest acreage (EPA 2020).
Table 2.
Estimate of avoided emissions with MSU campus wood material diversion program (in metric tons CO2).
Fig 5.
Planning and implementation phases of both Current CSF and proposed Enhanced CSF frameworks.
This figure shows conceptual planning and implementation Phases (numbered 1–5) of both Current CSF and the Enhanced CSF proposed in this paper. The dark green center column indicates common features of Current CSF, particularly reflecting the emphasis on productive and managed forests in Improved Forest Management carbon projects. In Phase 1, Enhanced CSF, the light green columns on the right and left, encompass a broader spectrum of potential CSF landscapes from deforested or degraded (right, light green column) to minimal intervention, remote areas (left, light green column) than is seen in Current CSF alone (center, dark green column). After the landscape is assessed, GHG benefit (e.g., carbon storage and sequestration) is analyzed in Phase 2. Phase 3 includes a strategy assessment to achieve climate benefit, with tactics including reforestation and restoration (left, light green column), improved forest management (center, dark green column), and protection (right, light green column). Phase 4 captures feasibility challenges (e.g., finance, social license, additionality) that may be associated with each tactic; reflecting the high feasibility of Current CSF and the feasibility challenges facing Enhanced CSF. Phase 5, with the entire row in light green indicating it is a part of Enhanced CSF, reflects the increasingly dominant themes of landscape and biodiversity planning, inclusion, safeguards, and forest products that explicitly to link multiple scales and disciplines of actors that can be absent from Current CSF.
Table 3.
Examples sources of low feasibility scenarios in Current CSF framing.