Helping Landowners See the Forest and The Trees

Huntingdon Farm is a small grass-fed, certified Angus beef operation located in Huntingdon County, PA. Purchased by John Dawes in 1970 with his brother Donald Dawes and Professor Herman R. Purdy from Penn State University, the farm evolved into a national and international source of Angus genetics. At Huntingdon Farm, the environment is a primary consideration alongside premier Angus genetics. Founder John Dawes Sr. and acting Farm Manager Bill Shoemaker have established the operation as a model for sustainability, producing grass-fed Angus beef that is light on the landscape and harmonized with the natural world. As a result, Huntingdon Farm prioritizes maximum conservation over maximum production.

The farm demonstrates no fewer than 30 best management practices (BMPs), implemented with professional expertise and cost-share programs to align with the farm’s core values. Huntingdon Farm primarily comprises grazing lands with alternating crops of Red Clover, Crimson Clover, Annual Rye Grass, Sudan Grass, and soil rejuvenation plots of turnips and alfalfa. These crops are directly fed to the cows, reducing reliance on costly and carbon-intensive feed supplementation. Additionally, forested land within the farm’s boundaries is managed for habitat preservation and supplemental income. A core focus of the operation is to quantify and assess the impact of reforestation and stream restoration efforts on environmental health, specifically Emma’s Creek—a small tributary to the Juniata River that flows into the Chesapeake Bay. To this end, Huntingdon Farm has partnered with The Commons and Coolant to deploy cutting-edge technology, enabling higher transparency and actionable data for evaluating land and water restoration efforts while maintaining a robust business operation.

The Broader Context: Challenges in Restoration Tracking

Despite billions of dollars invested in mitigating industrialization’s adverse effects on the natural world, governments and private foundations lack the tools to trace the efficacy, location, and persistence of their restoration investments. Without clear traceability, improving future restoration strategies and building public trust remain challenging, ultimately compromising ecosystem health and the sustainability of environmental restoration efforts.

The Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement highlights this issue. Federal investments of over $14.1 billion toward water quality improvements have only produced aggregated reports, leaving stakeholders unable to pinpoint project locations or assess their performance and impact. This gap contributes to jurisdictions consistently missing water quality targets, eroding public confidence in restoration funding. Outdated verification tools, high costs, and institutional inertia sustain an unacceptable "black box" approach to tracking restoration efforts. These limitations are further compounded by technical barriers and legacy approaches, preventing sectors from achieving a shared understanding of the implementation status and outcomes of functional restoration projects.

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Leveraging Technology for Restoration and Monitoring

Fortunately, platforms like FieldDoc are driving positive changes by enabling users to document restoration and land protection activities with precision. FieldDoc provides clear records of restoration sites and supports active tracking and documentation of associated work and funding sources. This innovation represents a significant step forward in transparency and accountability. However, practitioners still require cost-effective tools for ongoing monitoring as restoration sites develop. This need is addressed by integrating AI, computer vision, and low-cost commercial drones.

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Revolutionizing Monitoring with AI, Computer Vision, and Drones

AI, computer vision, and drones are transforming how restoration activities are measured, reported, and verified (MRV). They also provide precise tracking of critical indicators such as carbon stock and other environmental benefits. Traditional methodologies, such as sampling and manual measurements of forest stands, are time-intensive and prone to error. For example, foresters often assess variables like diameter at breast height (DBH), canopy coverage, and biomass on representative samples to estimate carbon stock. These methods introduce biases and assumptions that can result in over- or under-estimations.

Drone-based Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) offers unparalleled accuracy and repeatability, eliminating assumptions in data collection. However, the high costs—exceeding $40,000 for drone platforms—and the need for skilled GIS analysts make LiDAR prohibitive for many practitioners.

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Coolant and Affordable Drone Solutions

Coolant, leveraging commercial drones equipped with automated flight software and high-resolution cameras, provides an accessible alternative. These platforms collect high-fidelity images of restoration sites, which Coolant transforms into hyperrealistic 3D models comparable to LiDAR data products. Using pre-programmed drone scans, Coolant measures biomass, carbon stock, and canopy height for every tree in a project, systematically eliminating human error and assumptions.

This technology’s affordability marks a pivotal shift in site assessment. For instance, a DJI Mavic Mini 3 costs just over $1,000, and no specialized software modifications are needed. Coolant prepares automated flight plans using tools like DroneDeploy, ensuring proper altitudes and angles. Practitioners only need to charge the drone, execute the flight plan, and upload the imagery to Coolant for processing. This simplicity democratizes access to advanced MRV tools, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars and empowering local practitioners and landowners to generate credible carbon stock and biomass estimates.

The reusability of flight plans allows for consistent rescanning of sites as trees mature, providing ongoing insights into restoration progress. Coolant’s innovations is currently in a pilot phase, with validation efforts underway through leading carbon and ecosystem service credit auditors. Once validated, this approach will streamline the issuance of carbon and ecosystem service credits, reducing costs by enabling direct collaboration between implementers and corporate partners.

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Integration with FieldDoc for Comprehensive Restoration Tracking

The integration of Coolant and FieldDoc creates a powerful synergy for restoration tracking. For example, nonprofits and landowners collaborating with corporate partners like beef and dairy cooperatives can autonomously conduct site scans and produce accurate carbon stock and biomass estimates. These data are essential for corporate partners developing carbon insetting programs to support greener supply chains. FieldDoc complements Coolant’s capabilities by providing transparent metrics and tracking tools. Together, they allow users to assemble comprehensive portfolios of restoration work with full visibility into implementation status and environmental benefits. Stakeholders can easily share this information with corporate partners, ensuring a clear chain of custody for management practices that actively improve the natural world. By combining systems like Coolant and FieldDoc, all aspects of restoration are documented and measurable, leading to greater confidence and efficiency in generating ecosystem service benefits. This transformative approach enables practitioners to achieve meaningful, scalable impacts while promoting accountability and transparency in environmental restoration.

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