A New Carbon Finance Blueprint for Restoring Public Lands
Can carbon markets restore degraded public lands without replacing traditional land uses? In Colorado, a new 40-year lease agreement between Land Life and the Colorado State Land Board is proving it's possible.
In this NTC Now session, we heard from Clara Rowe , Director of Strategic Partnerships at Land Life, on how their new reforestation model blends carbon finance, ecological science, and long-term stewardship. The project showcases how nature tech can turn carbon credits into a force for public good, supporting biodiversity, climate goals, and state revenue.
👇 Highlights from the session are summarized below (initially published on the Nature Tech Collective website here).
How carbon finance supports ecological restoration
Carbon finance is one way to turn climate action into a working business model. When trees are planted or ecosystems restored, they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. That carbon can be measured and verified, and then sold as credits to companies looking to reduce their carbon footprint.
These credits are part of either voluntary markets, where companies buy offsets to meet internal sustainability goals, or compliance markets, which are tied to government regulations. Most nature-based projects today operate in the voluntary space, which offers more flexibility but also comes with particular scrutiny.
For land restoration, carbon finance helps cover the real costs: planting, maintenance, and decades of monitoring. It creates a steady revenue stream that makes large-scale, long-term projects possible. In public land contexts, it also offers something new, an opportunity to fund restoration of a critical state asset, while delivering climate, biodiversity, and community benefits.
Land Life & the Colorado State Land Board: A new financial model for scaling reforestation on public land
Public lands across the U.S. play a crucial role in biodiversity conservation and carbon storage. However, leveraging private finance for restoration projects on these lands, particularly through carbon credits, has so far been uncommon. There is an opportunity here: while federal lands face significant legal and administrative barriers that make carbon offset projects difficult to implement, state-managed lands can offer more flexibility and are emerging as promising testing grounds for innovative nature-based finance initiatives.
In Colorado, the State Land Board manages over 3 million acres with a forward-looking mandate: generate revenue for public education through long-term land stewardship. Though they continue to lease land for traditional uses such as grazing and mining, the agency has begun exploring new revenue opportunities, such as wetland mitigation banking projects, by tapping into the ecological benefits their lands provide.
This openness made them an ideal partner for Land Life’s reforestation proposal, which aims to restore wildfire-impacted landscapes using carbon finance as a catalyst. Instead of replacing current land uses like grazing or recreation, the project works alongside them, adding ecological benefits and creating a new source of income for the state.
The 40-year lease is designed to meet the long-term requirements of the carbon market while working with the needs of public agency operations.
The agreement, developed through months of stakeholder engagement, ecological review, and financial modeling, reflects a collaborative model for restoration rooted in public benefit. It shows how state-managed lands can support both ecological recovery and educational funding by connecting conservation goals with market-based tools.
How Land Life uses technology to design viable carbon projects in challenging landscapes
Land Life is a reforestation company with a bold mission: to restore the world’s degraded lands at scale using technology and ecological science. Their approach combines remote sensing, proprietary modeling, and on-the-ground expertise to design high-integrity carbon projects that deliver measurable climate and biodiversity benefits.
The challenge
In Colorado, Land Life faced a particular challenge: how to make restoration work in dry, temperate regions where tree growth is slow, planting costs are high, and survival rates can be low. To meet that challenge, they used a tech-enabled site selection and design process that starts with data and ends with field-tested, climate-resilient interventions.
The approach
They began by evaluating twelve candidate sites using remote sensing and their own modeling platform, which integrates slope, soil type, fire history, and regeneration potential to assess reforestation viability. Field assessments then narrowed the list to four sites where restoration would be both ecologically beneficial and operationally practical.
Central to this process is FastTrack, a forecasting tool Land Life developed to simulate tree growth and carbon sequestration over a 40-year timeline. By inputting local climate and species data, FastTrack allows project developers and credit buyers to forecast the carbon yield of a site before planting begins, making it easier to secure early investment and ensure long-term project viability.
Beyond carbon: building in biodiversity and watershed co-benefits
Land Life’s reforestation efforts are designed not just to sequester carbon, but to restore native biodiversity and stabilize sensitive watershed areas. By planting fire-adapted native species and planning for long-term climate resilience, Land Life is working to establish forests that are both durable and ecologically rich.
Outside Colorado, the company is also piloting advanced monitoring tools, like environmental DNA (eDNA), bioacoustics, and remote sensing, to better track biodiversity outcomes across sites. These kinds of ecological enhancements are known as co-benefits: measurable environmental or social outcomes that go beyond carbon sequestration. As nature markets evolve, the value of credits with verified, science-based co-benefits is expected to grow, and projects like the one in Colorado are helping set the standard for what high-integrity restoration can look like.
How to align reforestation with stakeholders and landscape-level planning
Ultimately, ecological success hinges on more than science and finance. It also requires alignment with those who manage and depend on the land. In Colorado, Land Life has worked with and continues to work closely with a range of local stakeholders, including the Colorado State Forest Service, grazing lessees, and wildlife agencies.
These partnerships shape everything from species selection to planting layouts, ensuring the project fits within broader land management goals. The lease agreement includes specific provisions to protect young forests from early-stage grazing and other conflicting uses while maintaining long-term access for public benefit. Crucially, this close collaboration helps build trust and is likely to make it easier to replicate the model in other places.
Why this project matters for the nature tech and public sector ecosystem
This isn’t just a one-off project. It’s a blueprint for scaling nature-based solutions through smart public-private collaboration. For public agencies, it offers a new tool to steward degraded lands and generate public revenue. For restoration NGOs and developers, it sets a high bar for scientific rigor and stakeholder alignment. And for corporate buyers looking to support real climate and biodiversity outcomes, it’s a rare example of a project that delivers on all fronts.
Currently, Land Life is currently seeking value-aligned offtakers for carbon credits from this initiative. For organizations serious about investing in nature-based solutions, this represents a compelling opportunity to support a model rooted in science, trust, and long-term ecological stewardship.
Want to go deeper?
Here is the full 30-minute session recording with Clara Rowe. Or reply with your thoughts - how do you see carbon finance evolving in public sector restoration?