Why aren't more landowners enrolling in land-based carbon credit exchanges?

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  Increasing concern from both private citizens and intergovernmental organizations about the effects of climate change has led to regulatory and voluntary mechanisms aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including an emerging carbon credit market.

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  Despite the opportunities for landowners to diversify revenue streams within current operations, there are risks (i.e., production and financial, market, legal-transactional, and social) that could reduce landowner enrollment rates.

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  We used a systems thinking approach to map the feedback relationships among landowner decision-making considerations, soil system processes, and carbon credit market incentives.

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  Our findings illustrate the complex set of constraints of participation in carbon credit programs and how they interact by revealing a limits to growth archetype.

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  Landowners and crop and livestock producers are uniquely positioned to shape and develop the carbon credit market by filling the gap between equitable transaction participation for both carbon credit buyers and sellers looking to capture value from mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.