The first Forest Resilience Bond was developed to fund a forest restoration project on the Tahoe National Forest in California’s North Yuba River watershed. This collaboration – among the USFS, the National Forest Foundation (NFF), the state of California, Yuba Water, and investors – is facilitated through the FRB Yuba Project I LLC. The LLC operates as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) and serves as the debt issuer. The LLC mitigates the financial risks of all parties to the project to the greatest extent possible. Blue Forest Conservation, a 501 (c)(3) non-profit, is the project investment developer and the project sponsor. The parties to the project were motivated to collaborate in the Yuba Project by the opportunity to pilot a funding approach that could attract private capital to accelerate and scale forest restoration efforts beyond what public funding alone could support. The first project protects and restores 15,000 acres of forest from catastrophic wildfire while providing additional water related and rural community co-benefits. A second project is scheduled to start implementation next year that will protect 40,000 acres. The Yuba FRB projects represent a funding model that is motivating collaboration on other forests in California, Oregon, and Washington.
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Presenters: Jim Gebhardt, Senior Finance Advisor – U.S. EPA Office of Water, Nick Wobbrock, co-Founder and COO – Blue Forest, Willie Whittlesey, General Manager – Yuba Water Agency
Link to webinar recording
Presenter Bios – FRB WestFAST webinar
FRB Webinar J.Gephardt Talking Points
