Restoring Peat Bogs in Coastal North Carolina

Conservation Need

 

North Carolina’s Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula is home to the greatest area of pocosin, or southeastern shrub peat bog, in the United States. Pocosins not only provide unique habitat for black bears and rare pitcher plants, but they also store millions of tons of carbon in their waterlogged soils. In North Carolina, about 70% of pocosin habitat has been ditched and drained since the 1960s for forestry and agriculture.

 

Carbon Opportunity

 

Recognizing the potential to restore peatland across the landscape and the potential of carbon markets to provide finance, The Nature Conservancy asked TerraCarbon to evaluate three potential restoration sites for carbon project development.

TerraCarbon Solution

 

TerraCarbon worked with The Nature Conservancy to develop a first-of-its-kind carbon accounting methodology that can be used for peatland restoration anywhere in the U.S. Southeast Coastal Plain and to prepare the project design documentation (in validation) for the first pilot project at Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.

Conservation Results

 

Based on TerraCarbon’s feasibility analysis, The Nature Conservancy decided to partner with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to restore 1,300 acres of degraded peatland at Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge as a pilot carbon project.  Restoration involved construction of water control structures and a berm to allow water levels to be raised, reducing carbon emissions from soil subsidence.

TerraCarbon supported development of the documentation and analysis to validate and register the pilot project with the American Carbon Registry (ACR).

TerraCarbon has since collaborated with The Nature Conservancy and other partners in North Carolina to assess similar restoration of pocosin wetlands on state and private lands, and is supporting a new project development effort on a large private parcel adjacent to the pilot project site. 

Read a related article on the opportunity to restore pocosins.

 

Services | Feasibility, Methodology, & Design