Forest resilience against wildfires

United States

Climate change is linked to more frequent and intense wildfires, with extreme wildfire risk doubling in the past 20 years. Resilient forests are crucial for carbon sequestration, wildlife habitats, and water supply. Wren is now supporting Blue Forest to help build forest resilience.

This project restores and protects forests, watersheds, ecosystems, and communities in the Western United States.

Rising global temperatures contribute to drier and hotter conditions, creating more flammable forests. To make matters worse, over a century of fire exclusion and historical timber practices while eliminating Indigenous burning has created dense, even-age forests vulnerable to high-severity fires.

Blue Forest is a non-profit that addresses these challenges by catalyzing funds and partners needed to accelerate ecological restoration projects, mitigating the risk of catastrophic wildfires and creating a more resilient future.

How does it work?

Traditional forest restoration funding usually comes from government grants and other public funding, but these sources can be slow to administer—leading to delays in implementation. Blue Forest helps solve these funding challenges with conservation finance, bringing together scientific experts, Native Nations, and local collaboratives to accelerate ecological restoration and enable climate resilience for ecosystems and communities.

1. Forming partnerships: Land managers identify critical forest restoration projects and engage Blue Forest for their support. Blue Forest collaborates with these land managers, local communities, Native Nations, governments, and non-profits to understand the financial requirements for the project, and helps the land manager select an implementation partner for on-the-ground work.

2. Evaluating benefits: Blue Forest identifies potential beneficiaries for these forest restoration activities. For example, private landowners could benefit from reduced wildfire severity, utility companies could benefit from a protected water supply, and state governments could benefit from job creation. Blue Forest quantifies the value of these benefits in partnership with each beneficiary to determine how much they’d be willing to pay for these benefits to be realized. These beneficiaries make payments into a Forest Resilience Bond (FRB) based on the value of anticipated benefits from the restoration project, allowing multiple groups to share in the cost of the project.

3. Securing investment: Blue Forest identifies investors, including foundations and institutional asset managers, to finance the project work. This means critical financing is available up-front for restoration projects, enabling restoration to happen at pace and scale.

4. Implementing restoration projects: The chosen implementation partner carries out the restoration work, tapping into the FRB to cover costs and ease cash flow constraints.

5. Delivering returns and benefits: Over time, as the project is implemented, beneficiaries pay their contracted amounts. These payments transition through the FRB to pay for the cost of the project and provide a modest financial return for investors.

In November 2018, Blue Forest launched the Yuba I FRB, its pilot project. Blue Forest raised $4M in private capital to finance restoration treatments including aspen and meadow restoration, underburning, forest thinning, and other activities across 15,000 acres of the Tahoe National Forest. FRB project funding was supported by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection via their California Climate Investment Program. Beneficiaries included the Yuba Water Agency and the United States Forest Service, due to the project’s benefits for water security and wildfire risk reduction. The United States Forest Service selected the National Forest Foundation as the primary implementation partner.

Learn more about the Forest Resilience Bond (FRB)

Why this project?

The forests and landscapes in the Western United States now look very different from what was there before European settlement. They’re denser and susceptible to large-scale disturbances from catastrophic wildfires, insect outbreaks, and drought.

Historically, these forests were maintained by natural fires ignited by lightning and Indigenous communities who stewarded the land with cultural or low-intensity fire to clear overgrown vegetation, cultivate plants and animals, and prevent wildfires. These communities knew that forests require fire to function as resilient ecosystems.

During the 1800s and 1900s, federal and state governments passed legislation that outlawed cultural burning and decreed that all fires must be suppressed. This practice of total fire exclusion has contributed to a massive backlog of forests that need restoration, including the return of beneficial fire to the landscape. Today, state and federal agencies recognize the necessity of allowing low-intensity fire. In 2022, California passed legislation affirming the use of cultural fire to steward lands.

Blue Forest partners with organizations, such as the Lomakatsi Restoration Project, to promote Tribal workforce training and development and support Tribal partnerships in collaborative forest and watershed restoration. Blue Forest supports the restoration of ceded and unceded Indigenous lands and aims to build meaningful relationships with Native Nations and Indigenous communities across the regions where they work. FRBs finance restoration treatments, including the reintroduction of beneficial fire, removal of excess vegetation, and the restoration of habitats and ecosystems, to improve the forest resilience that is vital for ecological health and community safety.

Here’s why we’re so enthusiastic about Blue Forest:

• Wildfire risk reduction and ecosystem protection. Millions of acres of forest in the Western United States are vulnerable to high-severity fires every year. Resilient forests are equipped to adapt to our changing climate and continue providing essential ecosystem services.

• Expert partnerships. Collaborating with groups such as land managers, communities, organizations, and Native Nations ensures that the right people are involved and the work gets done while supporting local economies.

• Cultural preservation. Indigenous and local communities depend on forests for their livelihoods and cultural practices. Partnering with the original stewards of these lands is crucial to a resilient and more equitable future.

• Scientific research and implementation. The Blue Forest science team continuously works with research partners to develop and leverage up-to-date science to deliver impactful solutions for nature and people.

• Positive impact. This project measures its impact in terms of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and aligns with targets including Clean Water and Sanitation ( SDG 6), Affordable and Clean Energy ( SDG 7), Decent Work and Economic Growth ( SDG 8), Sustainable Cities and Communities ( SDG 11), Climate Action ( SDG 13), Life on Land ( SDG 15), and Partnerships for the Goals ( SDG 17).

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Where is the project located?

Blue Forest is currently operating three projects in the Western United States:

• The Rogue Valley I FRB supports the protection of over 79,000 acres on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest and private lands around the communities of Jacksonville, Phoenix, Talent, Ruch, and southwest Medford.

• The Yuba II FRB supports the protection of nearly 48,000 acres of forest on the Tahoe National Forest, scaling the Yuba I FRB to continue critical restoration efforts in a priority high-fire-risk watershed.

• The Upper Mokelumne I FRB protects the Upper Mokelumne River watershed’s valuable ecosystems, habitats, communities, and natural resources across over 26,000 acres.

Who is behind this project?

Zach Knight and Nick Wobbrock were studying together at the University of California, Berkeley when the Rim Fire erupted in 2013—the largest wildfire in Yosemite and the second-largest in the state. After witnessing these events, they recognized financing as a primary obstacle to forest restoration and wildfire prevention. In 2015, they founded Blue Forest alongside Phil Saksa to focus on innovative financial solutions for these challenges.

Today, the Blue Forest team consists of experts in environmental science, finance, and partnership building. They connect with other organizations to leverage diverse expertise, such as local researchers, Native Nations, utilities, academic institutions, state and federal agencies, non-profits, and private companies. These partnerships ensure that local voices are heard and incorporated into project planning and implementation.

How is the money spent?

Wren's funding provides general operating support to Blue Forest, to sustain the critical work that happens before investors get involved. This includes research, community engagement, science-based benefit modeling, and other preparatory activities essential for project success. This aligns with trust-based philanthropy principles, which aim to redistribute power, enhance equity and inclusion, and foster long-term relationships between funders and non-profits.

How did we vet this project?

Wren conducts due diligence using a scorecard comprised of 250+ indicators and leverages insights from third-party carbon crediting agencies and experts. Forest resilience against wildfires is classified as an Additional contributions project that is not easily quantifiable in terms of carbon offsets, but supports systems-change needed for a sustainable future.