Laake Forest

Environmental Benefits

Clean air can best occur through carbon sequestration. Trees are one of the most effective means of capturing carbon and returning oxygen to our environment.

According to The Honorable Dick Lugar, United States Senator from Indiana: "I recently began selling carbon credits from our farm to the Chicago Climate Exchange. We have a 604-acre farm--about a third is in trees, a third in corn, a third in beans. I've been planting black walnut trees and other hardwood trees for 20 years or so to increase the amount of forest that I had. I consider these trees not only extraordinarily beautiful, but a big part of my life and my heritage. So it was a delight to discover that the Chicago climate folks have instituted a system in which they can evaluate the carbon-sink value of my trees. I've signed a five-year agreement to leave those trees soaking up carbon. Now each of my credits is worth about $3.40--that's up from $2.00 not so long ago. It's sort of a little-known fact how ingenious and inventive our market people are. I believe there is huge promise in this system--not just for companies trading pollution credits on a grand scale, but for individual landowners. Which is to say that America is already in very, very limited situations headed toward the Kyoto Protocol model." Quote from an interview with Dick Lugar, GOP crusader for energy independence June 7, 2006