What’s the value of planting trees? Conservation groups say a new formula can tell them.

The Texas Tribune

Jenny Sanders always knew she’d follow in her father’s footsteps. Raised on Texas ranches by her wildlife biologist father, she has spent her life working to protect the environment with the Texas Wildlife Association, the Texas Agricultural Land Trust and a private ranch in South Texas.

Today, the 44-year-old works in Lufkin helping various environmental organizations as an independent project coordinator, and since 2019, she’s worked with The Texas Longleaf Team to prevent the longleaf pine from vanishing.

The group relies on grants to support its efforts to protect the soaring trees, which once covered large swaths of East Texas but have shrunk to about 45,000 acres because of heavy logging in the early 1900s.

But attracting donors can be a challenge. Sanders, along with other conservation experts, said the argument to conserve the environment has largely relied on data that donors considered insufficient.

“We’re really good at talking about the warm and fuzzy,” Sanders said. But corporations want specifics on benefits their money is producing through conservation work, including details like how much water the trees collect from rainfall or the amount of carbon emissions they trap.

Sanders, who is the nonprofit’s only employee, enlists the help of volunteers, contractors and other groups. But with Texas Longleaf Team’s modest $250,000 annual budget, she was unable to do the kind of studies that potential donors wanted.

Then, in June 2024, a first-of-its-kind report introduced formulas for calculating that very information in different Texas ecosystems.

The report, published by Texan by Nature, includes a flexible formula that allows conservationists across Texas to adapt the calculations according to their specific projects and regions.

It’s a way to show that conservation efforts can offer data and results potential donors want to see, said Joni Carswell, president of Texan by Nature, a nonprofit that supports conservation programs in Texas through services that help conservation programs develop marketing campaigns and reports. They also introduce conservationists to potential donors in the private sector and host networking summits.

“We’re gonna pull the heartstrings, because it does make you feel good, we’re doing good things,” Carswell said. “But we also want to show the true value of the work that we’re doing and show that we’ll be smart about investing in our future.”

The report found that nearly 200 nonprofit organizations in Texas spent $639 million on restoration, education, policy and programs related to environmental conservation. The report’s authors analyzed tax filings, which detailed how much money nonprofits spent on program services and fundraising.

Texan by Nature also calculated a return on investment, which they valued at $2.8 billion. That figure includes water quality and quantity, carbon capture and increased tourism.

It’s a recipe the authors created from scratch, Carswell said, adding that measuring the value of individual projects wasn’t easy.

Texan by Nature spent five years locating environmental and recreational conservation projects across the state. From the West Texas deserts to the East Texas forests, the report’s authors studied roughly 34 million acres that conservation groups had restored or improved in some way.

“If I’m making a building, I could see what the benefit is and what the cost is,” said Edward Piñero, president of EcoMetrics, a Pennsylvania-based consulting firm that helps conservation groups translate their work into financial spreadsheets. “But if I’m planting trees or restoring wetlands, it’s sometimes harder to get a handle on what the benefits are and, more importantly, what they’re worth so that you can make financial decisions.”

Texan by Nature divided the state into ten geographical areas, called ecoregions, such as the Trans-Pecos desert, the Edwards Plateau and the Post Oak Savannah.

By focusing on unique ecosystems, the authors were able to better assess each region’s condition and identify the areas conservationists can improve upon — called the “uplift,” or improvement over the baseline condition of the land. Then they tracked the improvements to the land, acre by acre, which allowed them to demonstrate the value of conservation efforts.

“If we improve it with reforestation or we improve it with repairs or native vegetation, what is that difference in water flow? Or what is that difference in carbon capture?” Carswell said. “That’s what’s being captured with these projects.”

In the Coastal Bend region, for example, Texan by Nature enlisted conservationists to restore and protect a 1.5 million-acre watershed surrounding Baffin Bay, 50 miles south of Corpus Christi. Part of the massive project, which began in 2022, includes repairing or replacing 1,300 failing septic tanks in the area. Another involves restoring 660 acres of seagrass.

Servicing and replacing aging septic tanks reduces pollution seeping into the watershed, Carswell said.

Texan by Nature provided data about Baffin Bay so that conservationists can seek funding to restore 13,200 acres, which they estimate will bring the local community $165 million per year in recreational spending, like fishing trips, and lower healthcare expenses thanks in part to a less polluted bay.

For Sanders, restoring longleaf pines in East Texas involves convincing landowners about the benefits of the trees, which include providing a home to endangered species like red-cockaded woodpeckers and contributing to water filtration.

The towering trees, with a lifespan of 300 years and heights of up to 100 feet, once blanketed 90 million acres between Texas and Virginia but now cover less than 3% of their original range.

She said the biggest challenge is delivering the data donors evaluate when deciding whether a project is worth their investment. While Texas Longleaf Team provided information on the tree’s survival capabilities — they can withstand windstorms, wildfires and drought — and the number of acres restored, Texan by Nature calculated other factors, like how much water the trees absorb from rainfall, how much they reduce erosion and help local aquifers recharge.

An acre of longleaf pine forest can capture and filter 100,000 gallons of water a year, data gathered by Texan by Nature estimated. That’s the kind of data she wasn’t able to produce before working with Texan by Nature, she said.

When Sanders used the new data to apply for funding, Texas Longleaf received $825,000 in federal funding — more than three times the organization’s annual budget. She also received almost $1 million in private funding, the most the organization had ever received. She said at least two private companies had reached out to sponsor her projects, which was a first for the group.

“How do you make it matter to a funder or potential partner? You break it down to the simplest metrics that they understand,” Carswell said.

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This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.