The North Feather I FRB will finance forest restoration efforts on the Plumas National Forest and surrounding areas to help mitigate these risks while protecting the Feather River Watershed, which provides water to approximately 27 million Californians, or nearly 1 in 12 Americans. This initiative is born from a partnership between Blue Forest and organizations spanning multiple sectors, including Sierra Institute for the Community and Environment (Sierra Institute), USDA Forest Service, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, Pacific Gas & Electric, California Department of Water Resources, and Sierra Nevada Conservancy. This strategic alignment illustrates our shared commitment to watershed health while demonstrating the potential of what we can accomplish through collaboration. By leveraging varied expertise and resources from each organization, we are creating a comprehensive approach to forest restoration that increases the pace and scale of treatments that protect communities, landscapes, and infrastructure.

As the implementation partner, Sierra Institute is coordinating vegetation management, hazard tree removal, reforestation, invasive species management, prescribed fire, and other hydrological improvement practices on 800-1,000 priority acres within the project area. These acres are within the broader North Fork Forest Recovery Project (NFFRP), a 166,889-acre project area developed by the USDA Forest Service to strategically enhance landscape resilience, restore ecological function, protect critical resources, and support ecosystem recovery. Treatment activities are expected to reduce wildfire risk, increase water quality, protect water supply, and improve aquatic habitat.

The NFFRP is within the ancestral homelands of the Tosidem, or Mountain Maidu, People. It was planned with input from the Greenville Rancheria and critical cultural monitoring support by the Greenville Rancheria and Maidu Summit Consortium to ensure the protection of cultural resources. Areas identified for cultural stewardship by the local Tribes include the Maidu Stewardship Project Area (MSPA), a 1,500-acre area that is home to the largest Native American population in Plumas County. The MSPA was developed by the Maidu Cultural and Development Group to demonstrate traditional ecological knowledge and build a collaborative relationship with the Plumas National Forest.