EI's Mokelumne Environmental Benefits Program Awarded $375,000 Conservation Innovation Grant!

Sometimes innovation pays off.

Today, the NRCS announced the recipients of their Conservation Innovation Grants across the U.S. and the Mokelumne Environmental Benefits Program was one of the 2011 winners! According to NRCS Chief Dave White, "these grants will help some of America's top agricultural and conservation institutions, foundations and businesses develop unique approaches to enhancing and protecting natural resources on agricultural land. Their creativity and problem-solving will benefit conservation-minded farmers and ranchers, and everyone who relies upon our nation's natural resources for food and fiber."

Since 2010, Environmental Incentives has been working with the Environmental Defense Fund, Sustainable Conservation, the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, The Nature Conservancy and local partners to design a program in the Mokelumne River watershed to support investments in conservation practices that improve water availability, water quality, habitat viability, and carbon sequestration. Ecosystem services flow down the Mokelumne River supporting rural forest, agricultural and urban communities throughout California. The snowpack, meadows and reservoirs in the upper watershed sustain endangered amphibian and bird species, sport fishing, rafting, and supplies 125,000 homes with hydroelectric power. Public and private forests sequester carbon, produce commercially important timber products, and provide critical habitat. The snowpack and lower watershed reservoirs store water, which supplies 90% of the drinking water for 1.4 million water users in the San Francisco East Bay. In the lower watershed, agricultural producers irrigate over 800,000 acres of vineyards and other crops critical to California's economy, while water is released for native salmon and steelhead runs. The Mokelumne is also a critical source of fresh water to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which is connected to the California Water Project and thirsty Central Valley and Southern California agricultural and urban communities.

The initial focus of the Mokelumne Environmental Benefits Program will be to establish a regional ecosystem accounting framework that link conservation investments to the most precious ecosystem service in the West - water. The Program will define a quantitative metric to show how individual conservation actions relate to improved water quality and improves flow regimes for sensitive species.

And here's where things get really interesting.

The Mokelumne watershed presents a unique opportunity to integrate crop certification and ecosystem services quantification in a setting where the need to improve environmental conditions is already inspiring action. The Lodi Rules Sustainable Winegrowing (Lodi Rules) certification program is the first third-party certified sustainable winegrowing program in California. The Lodi Rules certifies more than 21,000 vineyard acres annually in the Mokelumne watershed, and certified vintners are seeing results. One grower in the watershed is receiving $25 per ton premium for certified grapes; another is seeing a 10% price premium on total crop tonnage.

The Mokelumne Program will allow the USDA to demonstrate how to combine crop certification with the quantification of environmental benefits in a manner that actually works for producers. This means producers will be able to receive revenue from multiple sources; being paid for environmental benefits through the Mokelumne Program while also earning a price premium through the Lodi Rules certification. The project partners plan to use the Mokelumne Program as a template for other watersheds across the Sierra Nevada region, and to guide the integration of crop certification and outcome-based ecosystem service credit programs nationally. 

This generous funding from the NRCS will bring us through program design and allow us to actually start breaking ground on some pilot projects in the watershed. We are thrilled to have this opportunity to demonstrate what Chief White and the NRCS are calling for - "innovative approaches to addressing some of the nation's most compelling natural resource concerns such as soil erosion, water and air quality, and energy."

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