In 2002, the Home Depot Foundation partnered with Reforest The Tropics to sponsor a demonstration forest to explore the possibilities of balancing US greenhouse gas emissions while producing wood on farms in the tropics. The forest was planted in the Atlantic Zone of Costa Rica on the Las Delicias Farm, which is owned by the Rojas family.
The graph shown here details the carbon sequestration and growth rate in the Home Depot forest. It provides the total sequestration (upper lines) and current annual sequestration (last 12 months; lower lines) in tonnes of carbon dioxide and cubic meters of wood production. The current annual sequestration was 29.4 tonnes of CO2, down from the past year. The total amount of CO2 stored in the forest in the past 6.64 years is 170.9 tonnes of CO2. The current and total production in cubic meters of wood are 33 and 188 cubic meters, respectively. The average annual sequestration and growth since planting are 25.7 and 28.3, respectively.
Long-term management and profitability for the farmer are the keys to sustainability and long-term carbon storage in farm forests. This project is managed by Reforest The Tropics under a 25-year agreement between RTT and the farm owners. The forest belongs to the farmer while the rights to the CO2 sequestered belong to the Home Depot during the agreement.