Terra Nova One

Recapture CRS in Action

Permaculture-Based Regenerative Agroforestry
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Verra

VCS-ARR

PERMACULTURE afforestation

Finca Chivilme, Salta, Argentina

Total Capture Capacity: 12,000 tons of CO₂

Status: Active

Recapture’s flagship project, Terra Nova One™ (TN1), which broke ground in March 2022 and launched in January 2023, represents a groundbreaking approach to carbon removal and ecosystem restoration in the Gran Chaco forest region. Located on a former corn and tobacco farm in Argentina’s Lerma Valley, this innovative project reached full carbon removal capacity within a year, capturing 1,000 tons of CO₂ annually, with a total removal capacity of 12,000 tons.

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About the Project

Introducing the Terra Nova Series™: Recapture's Multi-Faceted Approach to Community Forestry & Natural Carbon Removal

Welcome to the Terra Nova Series™ flagship research station, Terra Nova One (TN1). This project exemplifies Recapture’s mission to tackle climate change while enhancing livelihoods and biodiversity, while addressing a shortage in the supply regenerative timber.

Our vision of a forest in this context involves reforesting degraded lands with a focus on climate change mitigation, carbon sequestration, and sustainable ecosystem services for local communities. This integrated landscape management approach ensures the forest serves multiple purposes.

Key Objectives of TN1:

Climate change mitigation in tropical forest regions.
Restoring soils degraded soils by cash crop farming to enhance biodiversity.
Invasive species managment without herbicides through integrated management.
Transitioning marginalized land into multifunctional forests that provide climate mitigation, biodiversity support, and enhanced local livelihoods.

TN1's permaculture-driven approach integrates a three-part model combining:

Active Carbon Removal through afforestation of fast-growing, sterile hybrid hardwood trees.
Biodiversity Protection on 24 hectares of avoided deforestation land.
Invasive Species Management paired with native species reforestation on 2.5 hectares.

Key First-Year Highlights of TN1 indlude:

99% survival rate after one year of operation.
Sequestering carbon dioxide 300% more efficiently at 20 tons of CO2 per hectare annually, exceeding the standard 2-9 tons.
Carbon stacking methodology, storing CO₂ in above-ground biomass, below-ground biomass, and soil organic carbon, monitored via satellite imagery.
275% greater productivity per hectare than traditional models, utilizing regenerative timber production without replanting or disturbing soil carbon.
Economic uplift through tripled incomes for smallholder farmers, without displacing traditional farming practices.

Permaculture-Based Rotational Coppice Agroforestry with Regenerating Timber Production

TN1 operates on a Permaculture-Based Rotational Coppice Agroforestry System. This system draws on permaculture principles and CAM+ photosynthesis, which allows our hybrid Paulownia trees to fix carbon efficiently, even in arid conditions. The trees are planted biointensively, with 825 trees per 125 hectares, and managed through rotational coppicing starting in the 5th year on a 2- to 3-year cycle. This enables continuous timber production while maintaining healthy tree regeneration from their root systems, preserving soil health and supporting biodiversity by keeping trees in a juvenile state, which enhances pest resistance and rapid regrowth.

This model regenerates naturally using a coppice regeneration technique, allowing for up to seven harvests without replanting. The harvested timber is processed into green building materials for the EU’s mass timber industry, adhering to stringent sustainability standards. By limiting decomposition, these durable materials sequester carbon for decades to a century.

Project Highlights

Terra Nova One™ (TN1) is the flagship project of Recapture’s Terra Nova Series™, using a unique regenerating afforestation model that generates eco-timber for long-term storage into mass timber buildings. Traditional building materials like steel and concrete emit more greenhouse gases than trees turned into timber. However, the typical sustainable forestry model that produces timber for building materials has a problem that is anything but sustainable. Terra Nova addresses the unaccounted net emissions caused by sustainable timber projects that generate returns from clear-cutting, while tackling megaton levels of carbon dioxide that need to be removed from the atmosphere at scale to reach humanity’s global net zero targets.

Economic and Environmental Impact:Recapture’s projects inject significant value into local communities, with $1,024 USD reinvested for every ton of CO2 sequestered through salaries, profit-sharing, and community initiatives. Local team members and landowners directly receive $161 USD per ton of CO2 sequestered. Additionally, this model contributes to above- and below-ground biodiversity, monitored via the Shannon-Weiner Index, while enhancing ecosystem health through native species integration.

Highlights of the projects development include:‍

TN1 was implemented over the course of 8 months, after Recapture previously completed a 1.5-year regulatory approvals with both the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) Deutscher Pflanzenschutzdienste in Germany and the Servicio Nacional de Sanidad y Calidad Agroalimentaria (SENASA) in Argentina.
The harvested eco-timber was pre-sold into the European Union (EU) market for use as a building material in mass timber buildings, replacing higher carbon footprint materials like aluminum, cement, and steel when possible.
The project length is 37 years along with a 5-year restoration plan that integrates a mix of native plant species, including Lapacho, Tipuana tipu, Tabebuia guayacan, Mora trees, White Quebracho, Red Quebracho, Tuscas, Arcas, Bursera Graveolens, Citrus Limon, Prunus Persica, and Persea Americana.
TN1 includes a 2.5-hectare (6-acre) native species restoration project and 26-hectare (64-acre) avoided deforestation conservation activities.
Recapture's Co-benefits Reinvestment strategy is incorporated into the project, with a portion of project revenues reinvested into climate adaptation co-benefits locally to ensure more equitable development, managed by the community itself.
At the end of the project upon the final harvest the project lands will be intercropped with native species of trees and plants while being protected under a conservation easement.

A novel approach to reforestation

TN1's unique approach to reforestation is 275% more efficient with land than traditional reforestation projects, which grow at a maximum rate of 9 tons per hectare per year. This afforestation model offers numerous benefits over traditional approaches to both nature-based carbon solutions and forestry models while generating responsible profits for all project stakeholders. By turning trees into timber, TN1 emits fewer greenhouse gases than the manufacture of traditional building materials like steel and concrete.

The Problem with traditional stustainable forestry models

Sustainable forestry models that produce timber for building materials have a problem, and they are anything but sustainable. Single-bottom-line timber companies that seek to maximize only profits fail to account for significant carbon sources such as dead wood and soil destruction in their carbon accounting. This means that traditional sustainable forestry projects actually act as a net carbon source for at least a decade after harvesting.

TN1's Solution

TN1 not only addresses the net emissions caused by clear-cutting timber but also provides a bankable project model to sequester gigaton levels of carbon dioxide that need to be removed from the atmosphere in order to scale humanity’s global net-zero targets. By utilizing non-invasive, C4 photosynthesis hardwood trees in concert with an ancient silvicultural technology called coppice regeneration, TN1 is able to continually harvest wood up to 7 times productively from our living trees without disturbing soil carbon or replanting. This process allows for long-term remediation of environmentally damaged lands.

the importance of TN1's hybrid trees

Unlike experimental afforestation projects that propose using unstudied genetically modified seedlings in unmanaged areas, where the genes have been altered, TN1 projects use hybrids. These hybrids are a cross-breeding of two varieties that humans have been doing for centuries. TN1's managed plantations use naturally C4 photosynthesizing and certified trees by the University of Bonn to not produce seeds or pollen. These trees are naturally drought-tolerant, frost-hardy, and fire-resistant.
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In summary, TN1 is an innovative and sustainable solution for mitigating carbon emissions that provides long-term environmental benefits while generating responsible profits. The project's unique afforestation model, coupled with its use of hybrid trees, biochar, and climate-smart forestry approach, makes it an ideal choice for businesses looking to invest in carbon credits.

Project Benchmarks

Recapture, a pioneering utility-scale carbon removal project developer, has set new benchmarks in the carbon market with its Terra Nova 1 (TN1) project. The project has been a culmination of years of planning and investment, with initial funding from founders Trey Pringle and Philip-Michael Weiner, followed by founding operations team members Bruno, Dario and Martín Pekarek located within the indigenous Lerma Valley community 2019. Recapture's innovative approach to carbon stacking project design for Permaculture-Based Rotational Coppice Agroforestry System deployment is times more efficient than any standard reforestation project on earth. The company acquired and titled a 30-hectare property, Finca Terra Nova, in Salta, Argentina, and closed project finance for the TN1 project in 2022.

Economic and Environmental Benefit

Recapture’s projects inject significant value into local communities, with $1,024 USD reinvested for every ton of CO2 sequestered through salaries, profit-sharing, and community initiatives. Local team members and landowners directly receive $161 USD per ton of CO2 sequestered. Additionally, this model contributes to above- and below-ground biodiversity, monitored via the Shannon-Weiner Index, while enhancing ecosystem health through native species integration.

forest

80 tons of co₂ captured
per hectare per year

The TN1 project is expected to capture 80 tons of CO2 per hectare per year, a rate that is up to nine times faster than traditional reforestation methods using native hardwood trees. 20 tons will be verified for carbon removal credits.

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Projected 15-19% internal rate of return (IRR)

Recapture's Terra Nova Series™ delivers both environmental impact and financial returns from the regenerative eco-timber – showcasing that impact investors don't have to sacrifice sustainability for returns.

Workspaces

three-form carbon stacking enabled by coppice regeneration

Because TN1 uses coppice harvesting, carbon can stored and credited in both above and below ground biomass as well as soil organic carbon. Maximizing the project's carbon removal potential.

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profits to sustainable development co-benefits™

A portion of revenues reinvested into climate adaptation local to all projects, ensuring more equitable development and positive social impact in the local communities surrounding the project.

Implementation Timeline

Recapture's Terra Nova 1 project had a comprehensive implementation timeline. The groundbreaking took place in May 2022, followed by the installation of 3-phase solar and hydrology in September 2022. By December 2022, site preparation was completed, and the necessary permits were secured. Greenhouse hardening on the in-vitro saplings commenced in January 2023, and planting began in March 2023. The successful execution of this timeline ensured that the project was on track to meet its sequestration targets while minimizing delays or setbacks. Recapture anticipates the first credits from the project will be issued through Verra in 2024.