This carbon sequestration research is part of a new pilot grassland conservation program to protect at-risk grasslands from conversion to cropland in the northern Great Plains. Natural resources partners have leveraged more than $3 million in private and federal funding to support an innovative program that extends protection of privately-owned grasslands that have expired under the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). In the past two years alone, the number of CRP acres nationally has dropped from 31.2 million to 27 million. Of the 4.2-million-acre-decline, lands lost in North Dakota and Montana accounted for 1.6 million acres, or 38 percent. The program aims to encourage private landowners to conserve CRP grasslands through the financial incentives of carbon credits.With the support of LCC funding, Ducks Unlimited and LCC partners will conduct soil carbon measurements on expired CRP lands before and after installation of livestock fencing and other infrastructure benefiting grassland conservation.
