Blue Forest

We are excited to launch the Southern Oregon-Northeastern California I Watershed Resilience Bond (SONEC I WRB). Developed in partnership with Pheasants Forever, the WRB finances landscape-scale conservation across privately-owned working lands. This marks Blue Forest’s first financial product that focuses on improving watershed resilience across property boundaries. The WRB will aid Pheasants Forever in supporting private landowners engaging in Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) programs through financing upfront project costs and providing technical expertise in planning and implementation. This support will reduce key barriers currently faced by landowners engaging in NRCS programs. SONEC I WRB’s innovative and holistic approach will increase the pace and scale of conservation while keeping working lands working. Learn more about the SONEC I WRB here: https://lnkd.in/gmHnxg62

The countdown is on—SF Climate Week is now just one month away! 🌍💡 From April 19-27, the Bay will be buzzing with the people and ideas reshaping how we restore landscapes, fund solutions, and adapt to a changing world. The event calendar is now live, registration is open, and Blue Forest is presenting! Check it out at the link below, and stay tuned. In the coming days we’ll be sharing where you can find Blue Forest throughout the week. 🗓️ https://lnkd.in/e-yDkv2C #SFClimateWeek

Next week, FIRE SAFE SONOMA will be hosting Ariella Chichilnisky du Lac, Blue Forest Senior Project Development Associate, who will be sharing how healthy watersheds, decreasing wildfire risk, and increasing resilience can create value to support projects, and how financing can play a role in supporting watershed and ecosystem restoration. The conversation is part of the Fire Safe Sonoma Speaker Series and will be happening via Zoom and YouTube livestream at 2pm PST on Thursday, March 27. To register, click here: https://lnkd.in/gPwRQynn

What if forests could fund their own restoration? Recently published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, new research led by Micah Elias, PhD, suggests that under the right conditions, carbon markets could generate enough revenue to cover the cost of restoring wildfire-resilient forests—while reducing fire severity by nearly 80%. 📖 Read the study here: https://lnkd.in/ezvaVW6q 🌐 Learn more on our website: https://lnkd.in/gTqp6Qgv Huge thanks to our partners and coauthors in this research: Vibrant Planet, National Forest Foundation, American Forest Foundation, Northern Arizona University, University of Pennsylvania, University of California, Berkeley, Verra, Ethan Yackulic, Katharyn Duffy, Phil Saksa, Daniel L. Sanchez, Nicholas Pevzner, Spencer Plumb, Jillian Dyszynski, and Carina Bracer. Thank you also to Sierra Institute for Community and Environment for generously supplying the drone footage in this video.

Conservation X Labs recently announced semi-finalists for their Fire Grand Challenge, and we were excited to see some familiar names on the list! Congratulations to our partners BurnBot, Vibrant Planet, and The Sierra Fund, as well as to all the other honorees, who now have a chance of winning a share of over $1,000,000. Below, read more about the challenge, which aims to transform how we manage and live with fire by catalyzing scalable solutions that braid together Indigenous, rural, and place-based knowledge with cutting-edge technology and innovation.

We're thrilled to announce that we've been selected to the ImpactAssets 50 2025 as an Emerging Impact Manager! This list spotlights newer fund managers to watch that demonstrate a wide range of impact investing activities across geographies, sectors, and asset classes. Many thanks to the review committee for including us in this list. We’re proud to be selected among a diverse group demonstrating the potential to create positive impact: http://bit.ly/IA502025 #IA50 #IA50EIM

We love to see our partners out there putting good fire on the ground! 🔥

We extend our congratulations to Tom Schultz on his appointment as the 21st Chief of the USDA Forest Service. With decades of leadership in both the public and private sectors—including stewarding state trust lands, overseeing large-scale restoration projects, and forging partnerships across industries—Chief Schultz understands firsthand the balance required to manage forests for ecological health, economic vitality, and community resilience. We look forward to collaborating on our shared priorities: accelerating forest restoration, reducing wildfire risk, and ensuring the long-term sustainability of the landscapes that communities depend upon. At the same time, we express our deep gratitude to outgoing Chief Randy Moore for his decades of leadership and service to the agency. When he was a regional forester, the Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Region (R5) embraced bold new approaches to restoration, including our partnership through which we launched the first-ever Forest Resilience Bond. That early leap of faith helped prove the power of innovative financing to scale forest restoration, and today, thanks to that foundation, we’ve collectively made significant strides in protecting forests, watersheds, and communities across the West. Our work with the Forest Service has reinforced what’s possible when public and private partners come together to solve complex challenges. As we move forward, we remain committed to working alongside Chief Schultz and the agency to continue building resilience and prosperity for our forests, watersheds, and communities.

After a catastrophic wildfire, the land tells a story of loss. The skeletal remains of trees, the ashen ground, the foundations of homes turned to dust: these are the images that stay with us. But beyond what we can see, there is another story, one we can only hear. In ‘The Last of the Nightingales,’ a short documentary recently featured by The New Yorker, soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause, PhD invites us to listen, not just to the wild places he has recorded for decades, but also to his own experience. When the #TubbsFire tore through #SonomaCounty in 2017, he and his partner, Katherine Krause (VP of Wild Sanctuary), fled through flames, losing their home and Bernie’s vast archive of original recordings. When they returned, the land remained, but its voice had faded. The once-rich layers of birdsong and insect hums had thinned, the wild orchestra of life reduced to scattered notes. When nature falls silent, it signals a deeper unraveling that threatens water security, disaster resilience, and the economic stability of entire communities. A quiet forest is not a thriving one. When the soundscape collapses, so do ecosystems, disrupting seed dispersal, forest regeneration, and pollination, while altering food webs. Wildfires are reshaping landscapes faster than many ecosystems can recover, leaving some forests unable to regenerate and some species unable to return. We don’t have to wait for silence to tell us what’s been lost. Investing in forest resilience today means protecting the ecosystems, water resources, and communities that depend on them before the next disaster strikes. Watch ‘The Last of the Nightingales,’ directed by Masha Karpoukhina of Colorfool Films, here: https://lnkd.in/eAZ_mvEX

The federal pause on funding from the #InflationReductionAct and #InfrastructureInvestmentAndJobsAct is causing adverse impacts to wildfire mitigation efforts, and damaging the Administration's policy priorities such as #wildfire risk reduction. While the review is intended to ensure alignment with law and policy, it is also delaying projects that reduce hazardous fuels, protect watersheds, and support rural economies. This pause comes at a critical time, just as agencies and organizations have historically ramped up hiring and training ahead of the next fire season. In #Oregon, our partner, Lomakatsi Restoration Project, just had to cut 20% of its workforce due to these disruptions. These are jobs that sustain families and directly contribute to protecting forests, watersheds, and communities from catastrophic wildfire. Reduced capacity means slower progress on wildfire risk reduction and greater vulnerability for high-risk areas. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gHiFKu5R Last year, Oregon faced one of its most devastating wildfire seasons in decades. And just weeks ago, the #LAFires claimed lives, destroyed homes, and sent shockwaves around the world. The need for proactive solutions isn’t letting up and we can’t afford to, either. We need to increase the pace and scale of this work with stronger support from federal, state, and private-sector partners. Organizations like Lomakatsi are leading the charge on the ground, but they need the resources to continue on. You can support them directly here: https://lnkd.in/gzyidWFC