Many ranchers in the Mountain West region are starting to track and move their cattle with GPS collars as part of virtual fencing initiatives.
The technology can cost tens of thousands of dollars, but funding is coming from some unexpected places. In addition to federal grants and nonprofits, carbon credit company Kateri Carbon is helping pay.
The company says eighteen cattle ranches in our region, including the Pitchfork Ranch in Meeteetse, Wyo, are partnering with Kateri to track their cattle, make their land healthier and get extra revenue.
“ The whole idea that you could get a company to pay for everything up front was completely foreign to me,” said Ben Anson, the manager at Pitchfork. “It almost sounded too good to be true.”
Now, about 1,000 of Anson’s cattle have GPS collars thanks to Kateri and other nonprofits.
Kateri, which announced this week it's been acquired by natural capital project developer Cultivo, pays for tracking collars so cattle ranchers can draw customized virtual fences on an app.
Ranchers like Anson are increasingly turning to virtual fencing so they can cut labor costs, help prevent predator conflicts and get rid of barbed wire to open up migration corridors.
Kateri co-founder and CEO Ben Veres said the collars also help prevent overgrazing. The company also invests in water infrastructure, perennial seeding and other kinds of soil enrichment to make grasslands healthier.
“Improving your native perennial grasses results in improvement in soil carbon,” Veres explained.
Kateri measures any new carbon stored in the soil, controlling for other variables like rainfall and other ranch emissions. Veres said the company samples soil before signing contracts with ranches, so it can factor in how much carbon is already being stored, and only measure new carbon from there on out.
This new carbon then translates into “carbon credits,” which are equal to one metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent.
“We sell those onto the large companies, and that's what pays for this whole system,” Veres said, adding that ranchers get to use this as an additional revenue source.
Kateri is working with companies such as Shell’s U.S. nature-based solutions arm, which is helping the energy company meet its 2050 net-zero carbon emissions goal. Faced with public pressure, most energy and tech companies have climate goals like this, and are turning to methods like carbon credits or renewable energy credits to offset emissions.
However, Stephanie Feldstein takes issue with this carbon credit model. The population and sustainability director at the Center of Biological Diversity said buying these credits can excuse bad behavior from companies.
“If an oil and gas company, that is destroying habitat in one area, that is dumping pollution into marginalized communities, can then just pay for a cattle ranch to say that they're sequestering carbon, that's not really helping advance anything in the fight against climate change,” Feldstein said.
She added that regulations around this kind of regenerative ranching and carbon credits are often fuzzy.
Veres said Kateri relies on the best available science to sequester carbon and uses specific standards from leading carbon credit certifier Verra.
Verra has come under fire for certifying “phantom credits,” but the company has responded by cancelling some misused credits.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio, KJZZ in Arizona and NPR, with additional support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
