Vol. 3 Issue 2

Partnership News
Willamette Partnership Newsletter April 20, 2010

Re p o r t
A New Phase for Expanding the Pace, Scope, and Effectiveness of Restoration
-Bobby Cochran, Executive Director

Future is Bright for Partnership and Market Development
-David Primozich , Executive Director Emeritus

Last September, as many of you know, a broad group of stakeholders agreed on a General Crediting Protocol for the Willamette Basin using the Counting on the Environment process. Essentially, this is a first of its kind definition of how multiple credits are created and traded in an ecosystem marketplace. Over the last few months, we’ve made contact with stakeholders in other parts of Oregon, Washington and Idaho to determine where opportunities exist to share our locally-grown protocol, process lessons and infrastructure. It is clear that we need good market design (that is ecologically-driven, credible and transparent). It is also clear that we need a supply of verified and registered projects so people can see the type and quality of credits that could be available. Because a group of dedicated people put their heads together over the course of the last several years, we have the first of these, a solid market design. Now, however, we need to ensure a steady supply of projects enters into the system. Promoting supply is the next stage of market development. That’s where I will now be focusing my attention. I will be leaving the Willamette Partnership to lead a new Ecosystem Services Department at The Freshwater Trust – not-for-profit that has made a substantial commitment to pushing forward on this next stage of market development. The Freshwater Trust brings experience coordinating high quality restoration projects and a firm understanding that it will take lots of restoration professionals to produce the volume and scale of projects needed – both for our ecological goals and anticipated market demand. The Willamette Partnership Board of Directors confidently named Bobby Cochran as my successor at the Willamette Partnership, which enables the Partnership to focus closely on market design, protocols, and infrastructure in the Northwest - clearly setting the stage for continued credible and transparent market operations. This move will enable all of us to focus on making markets work in a way that promotes conservation at a scale that makes a difference.

I can’t imagine a more exciting time to be part of the Willamette Partnership. We’ve generated an enormous amount of momentum over the last five years. We have the only multi-credit package of ecosystem market protocols with agency approvals, we have four gung-ho staff, a great volunteer, and a Board that’s ready to push the use of ecosystem markets to achieve real environmental benefits. I’m honored to be coming in behind David’s pioneering work to be the next Executive Director of the Willamette Partnership. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. In the next three years, we’ll be moving the Counting on the Environment crediting protocols from their pilot status into a full-fledged program that results in better, more comprehensive mitigation of unavoidable impacts to our natural resources. The Partnership also will be working with other watersheds in the Northwest to build their capacity to leverage market-based tools to achieve their environmental goals. There’s no way we’ll be doing this alone. We’ll continue to rely on the network of people doing great work on different pieces of this puzzle. This includes restoration professionals generating credits, our business partners as buyers of ecosystem services, and the agencies governing natural resources. So, as we move forward into this next phase of work, please feel free to stop by, talk, and ask questions. I’ll probably be in touch with a lot of you here in the coming months.

Increasing the pace, scope, and effectiveness of conservation

Willamette Partnership — 2550 SW Hillsboro Hwy., Hillsboro, OR 97123 — (503) 681-5112 www.willamettepartnership.org

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Extending to New Watersheds: Discovering Opportunities
Special points of interest:
Future is Bright for Partnership and Market Development A New Phase for Expanding the Pace, Scope and Effectiveness of Restoration Extending to New Watersheds: Discovering Opportunities Combating Credit Confusion - Devin Judge-Lord, Market Specialist

Wood violet

In the last year we’ve discovered a number of loosely connected trading discussions in watersheds across the Northwest, each still needing a few pieces to the ecosystem market puzzle. Our extension efforts have introduced us to many passionate people curious about our tools and working examples. This new cooperation is reenergizing discussions and inspiring people to take on the challenge. We can now show that credible verification and transparent tracking are not insurmountable barriers and offer market infrastructure to the region. The challenge now is to reach out to the right people who can lead necessary local discussions and decision making. For example a group in the Yakima Basin that has been meeting at the wine bar is now working to expand the Counting on the Environment model to meet their needs, and the Rogue Basin might see river restoration helping to meet temperature regulations.

Another inspiring discovery was significant interest among conservation groups, trusts, and governments in using an ecosystem accounting system to track the performance of their investments. We imagine a world where these groups can invest in finished, verified, and registered priority restoration projects developed by skilled private and nonprofit professionals, like those at The Freshwater Trust. Unfortunately, places where trading has been most discussed like Klamath, Spokane, and Boise also tend to be the most burdened with legal uncertainty. However, large scale trading could break loose quickly, and the Partnership will be ready to collaborate on regional infrastructure needs. Investing now in extending and nationally standardizing the tools that the Partnership and others have developed will keep up the momentum and enthusiasm, overcome roadblocks, and assure that emerging markets achieve the highest quality ecological benefits.

Combating Credit Confusion
-Mac Martin, Water Resource Analyst

Mt. Hood perennial stream

Over the last decade, credits for ecosystem services have been voluntarily purchased by people and organizations interested in offsetting their impacts to the environment. The most popular of these services has been carbon. It became readily apparent as the voluntary carbon market matured that, without a sophisticated tracking mechanism, the

carbon credits circulating within it would be suspect—as their longevity and ownership rights could not be guaranteed. The carbon market’s initial response to this need proved inadequate and it was justly criticized. The Willamette Partnership took this lesson to heart. Now, through a strategic partnership with a global leader in market development, the

Willamette Partnership — 2550 SW Hillsboro Hwy., Hillsboro, OR 97123 — (503) 681-5112 www.willamettepartnership.org

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Combating Credit Confusion (continued)
Partnership has a fully-operational tracking mechanism that will guarantee the longevity and ownership rights of credits developed using Counting on the Environment standards. It is called the Markit Environmental Registry. The Markit Environmental Registry tracks the custody of credits. The simplicity of this description belies the complexity and importance of the function. Standards serve markets by ensuring a credit represents a real environmental benefit. But, without a reliable, centralized and universal method for following these benefits over time, standards are of questionable use. Our registry will: 1. Prevent credits from being sold multiple times 2. Ensure a listed credit always represents real environmental benefits. 3. Allow for the legitimate sale of multiple ecosystem services from a single restoration site. This third entry is of critical importance to the Willamette Partnership which decided, early on, that being able to sell multiple ecosystem service types from a single project is essential for attracting participants to the market. The fact that this advanced functionality is integrated into the registry makes it the first of its kind operating in the United State, and perhaps the world. For those of you interested in exploring the registry, please access it Eliot Glacier runoff online at the following address: http:// www.markitenvironmental.com/ Willamette Partnership bawregistryview.php?pg=prj. The is praised at Portland’s public view lets people see what City Club forum on projects are generating credits, how green markets for many credits have been issued and who cutting edge owns these credits. More projects and environmental credits will be listed on the registry over entrepreneurial the next year so check back periodically.

To receive regular updates on the Partnerships progress, subscribe to our newsletter by going to www.willamettepartnership.org and signing up for wp-news

leadership. For the complete story please visit the news section on the Willamette Partnership’s website.

History
The Willamette Partnership formed in 2004 to capture the momentum created upon completion of the Willamette Restoration Strategy. The Strategy articulated a vision for ecological health and economic vitality in the Willamette Basin and outlined critical actions needed to achieve success. Working with stakeholder leaders who developed the Strategy, the Partnership formed to accelerate needed innovation. One of these innovations is the establishment of an integrated ecosystem marketplace Willamette Partnership — 2550 SW Hillsboro Hwy., Hillsboro, OR 97123 — (503) 681-5112 www.willamettepartnership.org