Amazon.com Inc. said it will contribute $10 million to help conserve forests in the northeastern U.S. in an effort capture planet-warming carbon dioxide.
The Seattle-based company on Tuesday said the grant will make it the largest contributor to two relatively new programs overseen by the Nature Conservancy, the American Forest Foundation and the Vermont Land Trust, which are designed to encourage sustainable forestry practices among smaller forest owners and connect those people to carbon credit markets. In exchange, owners agree to take steps like limit harvesting of trees over a 20-year period or deploy other forestry practices designed to encourage healthy tree growth. Amazon said its contribution will help expand those programs beyond Pennsylvania and Vermont and ultimately help conserve some 4 million acres of forest land adjacent to the Appalachian Mountains, which stretch from Alabama to the Canadian border.
