Free, Interactive Tool to Guide Forest Protection for Climate Benefits in New York State Launched Through ESF, OSI Partnership

09/18/2025

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Sept. 18, 2025  —  As New York works to meet its goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the Climate & Applied Forest Research Institute (CAFRI) at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF), in partnership with the Open Space Institute (OSI), has launched a new tool to help state agencies, land trusts, and others harness the power of forests for carbon absorption and storage.

Developed with CAFRI data products, the New York Forest Carbon Mapper is a free, user-friendly, interactive microsite with valuable information for local and state agencies, land trusts, private landowners, renewable energy developers, and others working to protect high-carbon forests and other lands based on their past, present, and future climate benefits. People can explore the New York Forest Carbon Mapper online.

Forest protection is a critical and cost-effective way to lower greenhouse gas emissions. According to data from the U.S. Forest Service, New York’s forests sequester roughly 31 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year. However, this amount — which reflects the statewide forest carbon sink — has been in decline since the 1990s due to permanent forest loss, or conversion to non-forest land, resulting in a carbon sink that is less than half of what is needed to reach the state’s 2050 net-zero goal.      

As part of its work to make forest carbon data accessible and easy to use for climate decision-making, OSI developed the New York Forest Carbon Mapper using maps and data products created in the NY Forest Carbon Assessment, led by Dr. Colin Beier, CAFRI director and professor in ESF’s Department of Sustainable Resources Management.   

The Carbon Mapper highlights “live carbon” stocks — the carbon stored in living biomass such as tree trunks, branches, leaves, and roots — and sequestration rates that are used to estimate the climate benefits of avoiding deforestation, which causes significant emissions. Along with development forecasts, the CAFRI forest carbon maps are summarized by individual property boundaries, which allows users to identify forest parcels at risk for the greatest carbon emissions due to deforestation. 

“This tool makes it possible to easily bring the climate into decision making on conserving and managing forests,” said Abigail Weinberg, OSI’s vice president of Science and Conservation Policy. “OSI is connecting scientific data with on-the-ground efforts to elevate forestland protection as a key strategy in greenhouse gas emission reductions. The New York Forest Carbon Mapper is a practical, science-based solution that can directly support the state’s climate goals and help land trusts, state agencies, and others prioritize conservation where it matters most.”

The Carbon Mapper was developed with input from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), who along with several other state and local government authorities, uses CAFRI data, in alignment with the state’s Climate Scoping Plan. The statewide data products will be updated annually and include:

• Individual property-level summaries of forest carbon storage and sequestration for all parcels with at least five acres of forest, across the entire state of New York;
• Curated maps and datasets that identify high-carbon forests, those most at risk of carbon loss through conversion, and poorly stocked or potentially degraded forests for restoration; and
• Guidance and use cases to give land conservation practitioners and solar developers examples of how the CAFRI data can inform climate-smart decisions.

Users can also contact CAFRI to request custom maps and data drawn from the New York Forest Carbon Assessment for their own mapping research.

“Forests are essential to New York’s climate goals,” said Beier. “By building this intuitive, user-friendly tool for land trusts to identify and prioritize the most climate-critical forest lands for protection, OSI has advanced this effort by leaps and bounds. I think it could become an indispensable and impactful tool for land conservation that accelerates progress toward New York’s goals.”

“Land trusts are vital partners that help DEC identify and conserve open space for a wide range of environmental and community benefits,” said Fiona Watt, DEC’s director for the Division of Lands and Forests.

“Understanding the carbon mitigation potential of land conservation is an important tool to help further DEC’s forestry research and management and we appreciate the initiative taken by Open Space Institute and CAFRI in creating this new Forest Carbon Mapper.”

The NY Forest Carbon Mapper project was supported with funding from the New York State Conservation Partnership Program (NYSCPP) and New York's Environmental Protection Fund. The NYSCPP is administered by the Land Trust Alliance, in coordination with the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

About SUNY ESF

The SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) is dedicated to the study of the environment, developing renewable technologies, and building a sustainable and resilient future through design, policy, and management of the environment and natural resources. Members of the College community share a passion for protecting the health of the planet and a deep commitment to the rigorous application of science to improve the way humans interact with the world. The College offers academic programs ranging from the associate of applied science to the Doctor of Philosophy. ESF students live, study and do research on the main campus in Syracuse, N.Y., and on 25,000 acres of field stations in a variety of ecosystems across the state.

About OSI

The Open Space Institute is a national leader in land conservation and efforts to make parks and other protected land more welcoming for all. Since 1974, OSI has partnered in the protection of more than 2.5 million at-risk and environmentally sensitive acres in the eastern U.S. and Canada. OSI’s land protection promotes clean air and water, improves access to recreation, provides wildlife habitat, strengthens communities, and combats the devastating impacts of extreme weather.