The forestlands of the Pacific Northwest store a significant amount of carbon, provide wildlife habitat, generate revenue for forestland owners, and provide for sustainable generation of forest products. Promoting forest carbon storage is increasingly recognized as a key management objective to mitigate climate change. We developed an agent-based model to examine the effectiveness of current land management practices in sustaining forest carbon storage and revenue flows, and the utility of market-based carbon payments in improving carbon storage while also improving revenue generation in the Pacific Northwest. We find that while market-based incentives can improve both forest carbon storage and revenue, they are limited in their benefit to small forest owners. Our results highlight the crucial need for additional policy interventions to reduce barriers to market access for small private owners and ensure sustainable forest management in this region. We further show that a forest owners’ cooperative, which aggregates small owners to reduce the costs of participating in a carbon market, can help overcome these barriers and result in both greater carbon storage and a more equitable benefit from carbon payments.

太平洋西北地区的林地储存了大量的碳，为野生动物提供栖息地，为林地所有者创造收入，并提供可持续的林产品生产。促进森林碳储存越来越被认为是减缓气候变化的关键管理目标。我们开发了一个基于主体的模型来检验当前土地管理实践在维持森林碳储存和收入流动方面的有效性，以及基于市场的碳支付在改善碳储存同时提高太平洋西北地区创收方面的效用。我们发现，虽然基于市场的激励措施可以改善森林碳储量和收入，但它们对小森林所有者的好处有限。我们的结果强调迫切需要额外的政策干预措施，以减少小型私人所有者进入市场的障碍，并确保该地区的可持续森林管理。我们进一步表明，森林所有者合作社将小所有者聚集在一起以降低参与碳市场的成本，可以帮助克服这些障碍，并导致更大的碳储存和更公平的碳支付收益。