Blue Forest Monthly: Wildfire Season 2023
Dear Blue Forest community,?
Our hearts go out to all those affected by the recent natural disasters fueled by climate change. From the wildfires that claimed 115 lives and devastated the West Maui town of Lahaina earlier this month, to those that have burned across Canada for months blanketing the midwest to east coast in smoke this summer, the 2023 wildfire season is very much upon us. We’d like to express our support for all those who have and are currently experiencing loss due to these tragic events and to all frontline workers including first responders and firefighters.?
As these devastating events continue to unfold, early Blue Forest funder and supporter, the Rockefeller Foundation, tackled the subject in episode 27 of its #RFBreakthrough livestream series. Moderated by RF’s Innovative Finance Principal, Carli Roth , the panel featured Blue Forest Conservation Finance Research Director, Kim Quesnel Seipp, PhD and Senior Manager of Investment Strategy, Luke Carpenter . The three discussed the increase in wildfire frequency and severity due to the landscape-altering effects of past fire suppression policies and a changing climate, as well as the importance of financing models for ecosystem restoration efforts that have the potential to reduce wildfire risk, improve watershed resilience, and protect communities. If you missed it, you can listen to it here.?
As summer comes to a close, Blue Forest interns are reflecting on their impactful contributions during their time with us. From finance and science research, to design and social media, our summer interns immersed themselves in diverse projects to foster sustainable landscapes and communities and we are grateful for their hard work and dedication. Learn more about their experience in this blog post by our Social Media & Storytelling intern, Mariam Jallow.?
Our team continues to make significant contributions on the science and research front. Benjamin Bryant, then a researcher at Water in the West at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment, worked with a group of collaborators including Blue Forest team members, Tessa Maurer, Ph.D. and Phil Saksa PhD, as well as researchers from The Nature Conservancy and U.C. Davis, to design a place-based study that modeled treatments from the ongoing French Meadows Project in the headwaters of the American River in the California Sierra Nevada. The results were published last month in the journal Sustainability. Critically, the researchers were able to demonstrate the importance of including localized information when quantifying the hydropower generation value of enhanced water supply that can result from forest management.?Learn more about this research and findings in this month’s Science Corner by Tessa Maurer, Ph.D. below and check out the 2-pager for highlights.?
Please stay safe and feel free to drop us a line at [email protected] to share news, resources, feedback, or just to say “hello!”
- The Blue Forest Team???
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Photos and story by: Annapurna Holtzapple , Project Associate
I have always been excited by the way that forest restoration–fire ecology–touches everything. From biodiversity protection to Indigenous land stewardship and rematriation to protecting public health and safety, putting fire back on these landscapes plays an important role. Before working as a Project Associate at Blue Forest, I spent about a year at a research station in California’s Sierra Nevada working on a whole suite of research projects, management activities, the nationwide Fire and Fire Surrogates study, and prescribed burn workshops for students and local landowners to observe, ask questions, and get more comfortable with the practices of intentional burning. By the end of my time at the research station, I loved and looked forward to prescribed burns.?
Even as a student steeped in coursework about the benefits of fire ecology, the first prescribed burn I saw was unnerving. Years of seemingly continuous fire condition warnings, bans on campfires, and urban centers far from the mountains being choked by smoke made putting fire on the ground on purpose feel innately wrong and risky, despite knowing the need.?
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