CONWAY — After receiving a report gauging resident interest in joining the carbon market, the Selectboard plans to seek a grant to help kickstart the initiative.

The results of a survey conducted by phone with 111 Conway landowners showed 37 residents were interested in joining the carbon market in some way. The survey was conducted and the report was drafted by Williamsburg-based Wigmore Forest Resource Management and Westminster, Vermont-based Long View Forest Management, which worked with Conway through a grant awarded by the Mohawk Trail Woodlands Partnership and the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.

“Conway residents are interested in carbon credits and enough are interested to likely generate enough land to secure a pricing advantage,” said Tessa McGann of Long View Forest Management.

Selectboard Chair Philip Kantor said the town is pursuing a possible entry into the carbon market as a way to fight climate change and protect its natural resources.

“Municipally owned forests are at risk every year; it only takes one person at Town Meeting to stand up and say, ‘I move to log all town forests,’” he said. “They’re far more at risk than people realize.”

The carbon market offers credits for companies reducing or offsetting the use of fossil fuels. Depending on where companies operate — and which company Conway or landowners would choose to work with if they continue down this route — the market can operate differently.

Generally, carbon markets allow forest landowners or organizations to sell carbon credits to large production companies, thus providing money to landowners and investing in forests that actively sequester carbon. To be carbon neutral, the carbon credits saved by those who are in the carbon market can be used by others who emit carbon into the atmosphere.

Mary Wigmore, of Wigmore Forest Management Resources, said there are several ways to enter the carbon market. Individual landowners can create their own agreements with a company or enter into a group aggregate agreement that could include both private and municipal lands. A public-private partnership, Wigmore said, is very difficult to pull off because of all the moving parts and regulations that must be followed, but is the better conservation practice.

The 37 interested landowners in the report own a total of 4,252 acres of forested land in Conway, which surpasses the 2,000-acre minimum for aggregate projects.

The report states this type of partnership would “generate higher pricing” for the carbon credits created by the town “due to its potential to enhance biodiversity and forest resilience.” An aggregate partnership would require a “significant investment” of resources to create the appropriate legal framework among towns and individual stakeholders.

Kantor was unfazed by the potential difficulty of working out a public-private partnership.

“My interest is in the tougher path, the only way Conway knows,” he said. “We punch so much more above our weight.”

The report provides a brief outline of the procedure to generate a partnership between the town and private landowners, which would require a binding, long-term agreement of carbon stocking on properties; a feasibility study; finding a partner organization or alliance willing to work with the aggregate; and measuring the forest inventory, to name a few steps.

Kantor’s fellow Selectboard members were interested in the project as well, as both Chris Waldo and Erica Goleman signaled their support.

“To me, it always made sense for a municipality to do this,” Waldo said. “These are things that we can do, so let’s do them.”

The next steps would be for the town to seek another grant to conduct a feasibility study while continuing to talk to residents about the project.

McGann said many landowners, even those interested in the carbon market, expressed reservations about the long-term commitments.

“A vast majority said they were somewhat interested or on the fence,” she said. “Future conversations should talk about length of commitment and impacts to future landowners.”

As the town applies for grants, the next step also involves doing more research about undertaking a project like this, which Waldo said would be a unique challenge.

“If we have no basis to go off of, we’re creating something new,” Waldo said. “I can understand why government hasn’t done it.”

“Conway saves the world, what can I say,” Kantor quipped.

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com or 413-930-4081.