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Carbon-Offset Cowboys Let Their Grass Grow – Ranchers at Sun Ranch in Montana are being paid by polluters to keep their grass unmowed with help from Beartooth Capital

In the rolling foothills of the Madison range in southwestern Montana, a cabin-style house sits beside a washboard dirt road. A few horses loiter in a corral outside, and spotted ranch dogs bark and jump at the fence. James Stuart, manager of Sun Ranch http://www.papoosecreek.com/ , lives here with his wife and three kids. Christian, the oldest at four years, just got his first pony.

Stuart, who comes from a long line of rugged Scots who settled this region, has auburn hair and eyes lined from squinting—or smiling—in bright sunlight. He loves this land. You can hear it in his voice as he rattles off the creeks and canyons of the 26,000 acres he’s surveying from the cab of his silver Dodge pickup. We’re parked on an overlook in the middle of the ranch as Stuart’s gloved hand traces the outlines of the landscape around us. “We have Wolf Creek to the north, we have Moose Creek coming down out of this big canyon….” His voice trails off as our line of vision ends at the hilly horizon.

A firm called Beartooth Capital http://www.beartoothcap.com/ brokered the Sun Ranch carbon credits as a pilot project, but a nonprofit organization called the National Carbon Offset Coalition http://www.ncoc.us/ now manages the ranch’s contract with the Chicago Climate Exchange.

By Ashley Ahearn

Full Story: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=carbon-cowboys

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