Keeling Curve

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Project Summary / Description:

The Forest Resilience Bond, or FRB, was developed in partnership with the World Resources Institute (WRI), the USDA Forest Service, and the National Forest Foundation (NFF).

How it works:
It’s a public-private partnership that uses private capital to ease cash flow constraints. And it puts benefit evaluation models to work bringing in new money, so that multiple groups share the costs of forest restoration.

Building partnerships:
First, Blue Forest partners with communities, land managers, governments, and non-profits to design conservation finance projects that improve forest and watershed health.
We also look for an experienced land manager who selects an organization to be the implementation partner and manage the work on the ground.

Evaluating the benefits:
Then, working with beneficiaries, we evaluate the benefits of these projects and use this information to establish an economic, social, and environmental case for funding. Beneficiaries can be anyone who benefits from the work taking place – organizations like water and electric utilities, or agricultural producers.

Getting private investment on board:
The FRB is then brought to private investors, like foundations and institutional asset managers, who provide capital to finance the project work.
This means critical financing is available up-front for restoration projects, enabling them to happen at pace and scale.

The end result:
The investors receive a small return, and the restoration work gets done, protecting our communities and forests from catastrophic wildfire for future generations.

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How Project Affects Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions:

The FRB model affects GHG emissions in two ways: first, avoided carbon emissions through wildfire risk reduction across landscapes; and second, through prioritizing biomass utilization for the end product of forest restoration.

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Impact on Underrepresented Groups:

Our primary audience consists of rural communities. 1 in 3 homes in the United States are in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), which faces severe wildfire risk. WUI areas are characterized by high rates of poverty and unemployment, and are also chronically underfunded and under-resourced. Although federal and state spending on restoration and wildfire risk reduction is increasing, work contracts are not necessarily going to local businesses or supporting a local workforce. The FRB model works to increase investment in rural economies and communities, which is necessary for a just transition under climate change.

In addition, wildfire does not affect everyone equally even within the WUI; Indigenous communities in California are three times more concentrated in census tracts with high wildfire risk. Blue Forest includes frameworks and standards for Tribal engagement across each stage of the project development process to facilitate meaningful partnerships with Native Nations and the inclusion of traditional knowledge into landscape-scale restoration. For example, we partner with Lomakatsi Restoration Project, a workforce development organization that runs Tribal forestry crews to implement forest restoration funded by the Rogue Valley FRB in Southern Oregon.

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