Earn money from your Oaks, without cutting them down!
LandownerS
Let us help you earn revenue for preserving native forests.
Up to a trillion pounds of acorn fall from Oak trees across California every year. By sustainably harvesting a portion of those, we can provide nutritious and delicious acorn products to communities across the golden state.
As a landowner, you can turn your acorns into cash by either harvesting them yourself or - for larger lots in Northern California - having us come on-site and do the harvest for you.
If you’re looking at your taxes and maintenance bills and wondering how you can afford to keep your land, this program offers an alternative to logging or selling the land for development.
We may also be able to help you earn revenue from biodiversity credits by validating your sustainable land management.
Many landowners would like to keep their forests intact, but feel economic pressure to log or sell.
Harvesting acorn provides an alternative.
Depending on species, Oak trees can produce up to 2,000 lbs of acorns on a mast year.
We may also be able to help you earn biodiversity credits, which reward landowners based on habitat value and species diversity. Oak forests support more biodiversity than any other North American Biome - over 6,000 species.
Learn more about the tremendous impact you can have by preserving and replanting on your land by downloading our recent white paper on carbon and biodiversity in California’s Oak forests.
YOu CAN HELP PRESERVE FORESTS
How it Works
1) A landowner commits to preserving or restoring Native forests
Landowners can be an individual, tribe, or company. While we primarily work with Oak forests, we also purchase Tanoak acorns that grow in Redwood forests.
2) Acorn is sustainably harvested
You can do the harvest yourself, pay a crew, or work with us to bring our team on-site to harvest acorn. We only harvest from accessible Oaks and Tanoaks on relatively flat lands, leaving acorns in the hills and mountains for wildlife. On sites where we harvest we provide active monitoring of habitat impacts before, during, and after the harvest using our staff scientists and Native American cultural practitioners.
3) Biodiversity credits can be issued and sold based on the proven habitat value.
Companies can voluntarily purchase biodiversity credits on an open market, and the majority of revenue is paid to the land owners. This program is compatible with the requirements for ecological easements from most Land Trusts and other preservation organizations.
California’s forests
are uniquely
important
For Habitat
In addition to providing habitat for more than 6,000 species, California’s Oak forests can store as much carbon per acre as a tropical rainforest. Our Redwoods sequester more carbon than any other forest in the world.
But for 200 years, our Oak and Redwood forests have been shrinking as development and farming replace habitat. Today, many of California’s Oaks are endangered, and 98% of our old growth Redwood is gone.
We can reverse this trend by removing the economic incentive to cut and paying people to keep forests standing.
Through partnerships with Indigenous practitioners, we may also be able to help land owners restore highly effective cultural burns that dramatically reduce wildfire risk - and cover costs from revenue earned.