Nigerian businessman, politician, and activist Odigha Odigha has managed to slow deforestation in his native Cross River State by taking on loggers and lobbying for the creation of a state forestry board.  Now he’s a leading proponent of using carbon finance to help preserve what’s left of the country’s once vast rainforest.

With over 20 years of experience in the forestry sector, Michael Northrup, Program Director of Sustainable Development at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, was invited by the Pinchot Institute for Conservation to give a Distinguished Lecture, "After Copenhagen: Implications for U.S. Climate, Energy, and Forest Policy" at the high brow, exclusive Cosmos Club. Northrup gives his take on how to get REDD across the finish line after two decades of forest policy. Maria Bendana posted this summary to the Eko-Eco blog.

Carbon investors over the past two years have assumed the agency leading the development of California’s cap-and-trade rules would recognize certain offsets generated under the state’s voluntary scheme once reductions become mandatory, and more than 200 projects have enrolled under those protocols.  Now, however, the state says it approved them in haste, and the status of all projects is up for review.

Six years after the worst fire in California’s recorded history, the state is trying out carbon financing to help restore one of its struggling forests. The project raises – and perhaps answers – several serious questions about enrolling public lands in offset programs, but the elephant in the room – US federal land – continues to loom largely unaddressed.