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Tahoe National Forest

California

Collaboration on the Yuba I FRB laid the groundwork for the foundation of the North Yuba Forest Partnership (NYFP), a collaborative of nine organizations focused on protecting 275,000 forested acres in the North Yuba River watershed.

Many of the forested lands in this watershed are degraded after more than a century of fire exclusion has led to overcrowded forests at risk of a high-severity wildfire. The Yuba II FRB finances over 28,000 acres of treatment activities to protect nearly 48,000 acres of forest, scaling the Yuba I FRB to continue critical restoration efforts in a priority high-fire risk watershed. Blue Forest recognizes that the North Yuba River watershed makes up the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary homelands of the Nisenan People and intertribal regions of the Mountain Maidu, Konkow, and Washoe, who have stewarded these lands since time immemorial. We are honored to partner with the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe to support the restoration of Nisenan homelands.

Launched in 2021, the Yuba II FRB finances treatment activities such as thinning, prescribed burning, hardwood regeneration, invasive species removal, and other forms of ecological restoration. The Yuba II treatment areas have been incorporated as a subset of the North Yuba Landscape Resilience Project (NYLRP). The NYLRP, spread over nine strategically prioritized areas, will focus on wildfire risk reduction to protect communities and infrastructure. Additional benefits include enhanced water supply, protected water quality, protected habitat for sensitive species, and protection of New Bullards Bar Reservoir used for flood protection, hydropower generation, and water supply to eight agricultural irrigation districts.

The Yuba II FRB project is implemented by the National Forest Foundation, with funding from Yuba Water, USDA Forest Service, California Wildlife Conservation Board, and Bonneville Environmental Foundation’s corporate water replenishment program. The FRB provides $25 million in readily available capital from four market-rate investors: Hall Capital, ImpactAssets, RSF Social Finance, and repeat investor CSAA Insurance Group. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF) acted as the lead investor for the $3 million Program Related Investment (PRI) component of the FRB, alongside the Inherent Foundation.

“Our investment and partnership in the first Forest Resilience Bond proved to be greatly successful in helping advance forest resilience work at a much faster pace and scale,” said Willie Whittlesey, Yuba Water’s general manager. “It was a logical next step for Yuba Water to commit funding for the Yuba II Project, to build on that momentum and continue to advance work to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire and protect our communities and water supply.”
Willie Whittlesey, General Manager, Yuba Water