Investments into wildfire prevention project
Oct. 13—With the impacts of wildfires and climate change drastically affecting the North Yuba River watershed, environmental investment groups Calvert Impact Capital and Blue Forest Conservation have partnered with the Yuba Water Agency to implement the Yuba 1 project.
Yuba 1 is a wildfire reduction program developed through Blue Forest's Forest Resilience Bond which finances sustainable solutions to the ecological impacts of climate change.
Calvert Impact Capital was one of the first investors for this project.
Over four years in the making, Yuba 1 is a forest restoration project spanning over 15,000 acres in the Tahoe National Forest system within the Yuba River Watershed.
In 2018, Blue Forest Conservation financed $4 million for forest treatments to protect the watershed through an agreement with the United States Forest Service. In turn, Yuba Water Agency has allocated $1.5 million to reimburse investors over the course of the Yuba 1 project, according to Blue Forest officials.
Through processes such as tree thinning, controlled burns, meadow restoration and invasive species management, the project aims to enhance fire resilience and adaptability to climate change in local forests and the watershed, said Helen Zhang, an investment analyst for Calvert Impact Capital.
"The Yuba I FRB investment was a first-of-its-kind structure leveraging private capital for forest resilience and restoration work. It is the only Calvert Impact investment and one of the few investable projects in the environmental sustainability sector that attempts to prevent catastrophic wildfires, which contribute to CO2 emissions and negatively impact water quality, wildlife habitats, and public health and safety," Zhang said in an email to the Appeal.
Yuba Water Agency unanimously supported the project due to its benefits to the quality of water, forests and air in Yuba County, Yuba Water Agency Board of Directors Vice Chairman Randy Fletcher said in a statement.
"It could mean really big things for our ability to reduce the fuel load by thinning the forest in a healthy, responsible way, thereby significantly reducing the fire risk to our residents, while bringing great benefits to the Yuba watershed," he said.
Implementing these processes can take a significant amount of time and resources to complete. Without proper funding for land management projects like Yuba 1, wildfires will continue to pose a threat to local ecology within the watershed, Zhang said.
CEO of Blue Forest Conservation Zach Knight said that as a conservation finance group, the nonprofit organization is responsible for creating partnerships with groups like Yuba Water Agency to financially support environmental impact projects.
"We also provide financing which makes money and commitments from groups like the Yuba Water Agency or state agencies here in California that also support this work. We make that money available so we can pay contractors immediately. That's a really important piece of the puzzle in terms of actually attracting local work and building the capacity of the local workforce," Knight said.
Contractors who carry out the restoration work, or implementation partners, are selected by the Forest Service based on their ability to manage proposals for land management activities.
Yuba 1 is an ongoing project, but Knight expects it to be completed near the end of this year. The project is currently awaiting approval for prescribed burns that will occur once the ecological restoration is completed. Because of the project site's high elevation, work must be completed before heavy snowfall in the winter, Knight said.
According to Blue Forest officials, a secondary conservation project, Yuba 2, began in October last year which will further the restoration work initiated by Yuba 1 toward the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The $25 million project is expected to restore 48,000 forested acres, protect nearby communities, and enhance water security.
