Climate Forest LLC is a German-American company based in the US state of Maine. Our passion is dedicated to the forest as a critical asset in the fight against climate change, a provider of renewable resources, a habitat for plants and wildlife and a place for recreation and hunting.

We manage about 70,000 acres of forest in the northeastern United States and Canada with the aim to actively contribute to climate protection through near-natural forestry. To this end, we generate CO2 certificates for the international, voluntary market, for example through reduced logging, complete conservation or improved management methods.

The state of Maine captivates with its unique and charming natural landscape with extensive forests, wild rivers, remote lakes and the rugged Atlantic coast. The vast mixed forests with their high diversity of tree species are especially characteristic. More than 80 % of the state's area is covered by forest. Every fall, the Indian summer with its impressive play of colors attracts numerous nature lovers to the far northeast of the USA.

Forestry plays a significant role in Maine. Most forests are managed and serve as a source of raw material for paper and other wood products. The tree population is usually felled every 30 to 40 years. The resulting clear cuts are left to nature, which re-establishes a mixed forest there without human intervention.

Forests have a major impact on the climate and absorb significant amounts of CO2 in their life span. This makes them an important player in fight against climate change. In addition, forests are habitats for numerous species of flora and fauna alike and contribute significantly to soil quality. Humans have a considerable influence on these qualities through the way forests are managed.

Our idea is to let the forests grow old. With near-natural forestry, i.e. careful management or interruption of use, we allow the forest to grow significantly older than 40 years. The usual felling of trees is omitted - the CO2 remains bound in the trees. With individual maintenance measures, we ensure thinning of the stands so that individual trees can grow larger and stronger.

Altogether, through the decades a multi-layered forest is created, which will provide habitats for a greater variety of plants and animals. Meanwhile the thereby sequestered CO2 allows the generation of Voluntary Carbon Offsets in form of CO2-certificates.

The land we manage covers approximately 70,000 acres - the equivalent of about 16,000 football fields.

Once the recording is done, the CO2 storage capacity of the forests is calculated. This is done on the basis of the internationally recognized specifications of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). By running through various scenarios, we can then decide on the best possible management method to store as much CO2 as possible in the forest in the future.

The CO2 certificates are then generated exclusively from the CO2 sink performance that exceeds that which the forest would have had without improved management. This means that we only count the additional sink capacity of the forest generated by the near-natural management.

The last time timber was removed from the project forests was about 20 years ago. Since then, they have been growing continuously. No human intervention has taken place during this period. As a result, the trees are predominantly very narrow and only individual specimens have been able to "grow into the wood", i.e. develop stem wood dimensions.

The Climate Forest Management team is experts in their field and knows what they are doing.

Sebastian Seidel has a degree in forestry and actively managed forests in Germany before he began acquiring forests internationally for investors with an interest in woodland. In Maine, he knows his way around.

Leonard Rauch is a qualified forester with experience in the management of the family held woodland estate in Germany. For Climate Forest, he is the forest operations manager responsible for the company's own Canadian and U.S. project properties. To ensure close cooperation with our local foresters, he is regularly on site and coordinates the forestry measures on the more than 70,000 acres of land.

Samuel Wells studied environmental science and biology at the prestigious Colby College. He has subsequently participated in various field studies and gained experience in wilderness and wildlife biology. On behalf of Climate Forest, he coordinates the recording of the carbon storage performance of the project forests by laser scans.

Jay Braunscheidel has worked as a forester for many years and is the man on the ground in Maine. He has worked in the past on teams where his managerial responsibility would at times cover over 140,000 acres of land. Jay is the man on the ground. He plans and puts measures into action in the project forests and monitors their execution closely.