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Washington, Nov. 1, 2018 — Always looking for new opportunities to improve forest health, the USDA Forest Service (Forest Service) has partnered with Blue Forest Conservation (Blue Forest) and the World Resources Institute to pilot the use of Forest Resilience Bonds. A Forest Resilience Bond (FRB) is a financial vehicle that utilizes private capital to fund improvement projects on our nation’s forests. Partnering with Blue Forest and World Resources Institute allows the Forest Service to accelerate the pace and scale of actions improving forest health in landscapes at high risk of wildfire.

Blue Forest is currently piloting the Forest Resilience Bond on 15,000 acres of the North Yuba River watershed, including the Tahoe National Forest in California. With $4 million in funding on the estimated $4.6 million project, and with the National Forest Foundation as an implementation partner, work will begin to improve forest and watershed health in the project area on the Tahoe National Forest in the near future. The forest management techniques used on this project will include ecological forest thinning, meadow restoration, prescribed burns, and invasive plant treatments.

The Forest Resilience Bond raises upfront private capital necessary to fund treatments and uses a collaborative framework that brings together stakeholders that benefit from the forest improvement projects to share the cost of reimbursing investors over time. Recognizing the potential for this project to benefit local water and power resources, the Yuba Water Agency is contributing $1.5 million over five years to reimburse FRB investors and demonstrate the viability of this new partnership model. In addition, the State of California has committed $2.6 million from the state’s Climate Change Investment grant program. Private investment in this project comes from the Rockefeller Foundation, Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation, Calvert Impact Capital, and California State Automobile Association Insurance.

“This first of a kind agreement with Blue Forest Conservation is a new innovative way to fund projects to improve the condition of the nation’s forests and grasslands,” says Vicki Christiansen, Chief of the USDA Forest Service. “We look forward to building upon this tool and to working with other partners, as well as states, to provide essential services and resources that will promote, maintain and improve our forest’s health.”

For more information about the U.S. Forest Service visit http://www.fs.fed.us/ and Blue Forest Conservation visit https://www.blueforestconservation.com/#frb

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