Landscape Scale Restoration on the North Yuba Watershed: A Documentary

Written by: Jessica Alvarez, Communications & Content Manager

Since 2018, Blue Forest has been a proud, founding member of the North Yuba Forest Partnership, a diverse group of nine organizations passionate about forest health and the resilience of the North Yuba River watershed. Together, the partners are working on an unprecedented scale to collaboratively plan, analyze, finance, and implement forest restoration across 275,000 acres of the watershed.

To tell the story of how the partnership came about, its importance to the future and health of this watershed and nearby communities, as well as the future of that project, Blue Forest and early partner Rockefeller Foundation enlisted award-winning filmmaker and photographer, Zach Krahmer. Zach is a professional community-focused and policy oriented storyteller who uses photography and video to communicate intimate stories connecting environment, civic participation, and global economics.

Over the past year and half, Zach has been working on a documentary about the partnership, the project and the innovative financing mechanism behind it. During early conversations with Blue Forest COO, Nick Wobbrock, about our work and about the Forest Resilience Bond, Zach, who is also a PNW native and thus, no stranger to the wildfire crisis, found it to be “a really interesting concept.”

“Wildfires have been increasing in size and severity and in my conversations with Nick, the FRB was presented as sort of this novel financing solution moving forward. It seemed like a really neat concept that could work on other landscapes,” said Zach. “I studied land policy in grad school and working on this project combined a lot of the things that I’m interested in.”

Zach’s journey in taking on this project and telling this story has been one that involves many moving parts, partners, relationship-building, travel and much more. His goal for this video is not only telling the story but also educating audiences about this project, financing opportunity and partnership.

“I think that this video is important. I think the work that’s happening is important because of the scale of the issue with wildfire, forest health and how our relationship with the landscape  continues to change and evolve,” he explained. “I think communicating and contextualizing about this work is so important because there are a lot of different narratives out there. I think that it’s so important to elevate science and to support the collaboration that’s happening.”

And that collaboration is what makes this partnership interesting and unique as the partners are all very different. “The actual work that’s occurring in collaborative planning and implementation is nuanced and complex. It’s meaningful to see actors and stakeholder groups with very different backgrounds and priorities all coming together around a shared vision. I think it’s an inspiring story and showcases a positive example for other areas to have these groups coming together across differences to achieve a goal.”

As Zach adds the final touches to the video and brings it all together for publishing in the near future, Blue Forest and our partners are grateful and excited for this story to be told. We hope this project will inspire many more of these partnerships through which we can make a difference for communities and landscapes across the American West.