Colgate University's forested lands play an important role in mitigating the university's impact on climate change. As trees grow, they sequester and store carbon acting as a carbon sink. The 2023 Forest Carbon Inventory and Projections report marks the second periodic re-measurement of forest carbon sequestration.

Since 2018, Colgate's forested lands sequestered a total of 19,422 metric tons of CO2 for an average of 3,884 metric tons per year.  

Altogether, Colgate's 1,057 acres of forests store 210,058 metric tons of CO2.

Colgate University is working toward the reduction and offsetting of its greenhouse gas emissions. The university’s forest plays an important role in this effort as a significant carbon sink. This report marks the first periodic re-measurement of forest carbon sequestration.

Colgate’s Sustainability and Climate Action Plan calls for “the establishment of a baseline for forest carbon accounting” along with projections of “annual rates of forest carbon sequestration.” This baseline was established in 2013.

Approximately 63% of New York State is forested with nearly 14 million acres being privately owned.  How these acres are cared for and managed is critical to increasing biodiversity, mitigating climate change, promoting outdoor recreational activities, enhancing ecosystem services, and supporting forestry-based products.  A significant portion of New York State's privately owned forests is not actively managed or cared for to maximize the benefit of our forested landscape.  

In 2013, with the leadership of Dr. Steven Bick of Northeast Forests, LLC., Colgate's 1,059 acres of forested land became certified under the American Tree Farm System.  This plan was updated in 2018 and details the university's long-term sustainable management strategy to ensure that Colgate's forested lands remain healthy and vibrant for generations to come. 

The Village of Hamilton deer population is overabundant with numbers often exceeding 40 deer km-2 and pervasive deer browsing damage throughout the Village and in Colgate Forests. To diminish the impacts of the local deer population such as forest browse, Lyme disease, and deer-vehicle collisions, Colgate University & the Upstate Institute established a deer management working group and instituted a deer management program that includes a deer cull on Colgate's forested lands beginning in 2022.  The Deer Management Working Group is proposing to continue both hunting and culling on Colgate lands to reduce deer overabundance and reduce their negative impacts.

This plan is an update to the management plan created by Bill Betts of A-Line Forestry in 1997. Following this ten-year cycle, it details Colgate's stewardship policies from 2007 until approximately 2017. It is based upon a draft created by Dr. Steven Bick of Northeast Forests LLC, then revised by Colgate's Environmental Council in consultation with Dr. Bick and members of the Colgate community whose interests, expertise, or activities most directly involve these lands. The plan specifies a set of management objectives and goals, as well as a system of classification according to which individual land management units are categorized. It also endorses an overall philosophy of land stewardship.