Blue Forest & SE Group: Partner Profile
SE Group and Blue Forest are working to promote healthy forests and accelerate wildfire resilience across the western landscape.
“SE Group’s extensive experience in environmental planning has helped bring together many partners to develop an implementation plan that is already being used to get ready for work next field season,” Kim Seipp, Managing Director of Science and Research, explains. “For this project, the NEPA-permitted landscape is 75,000 acres, but the Forest and partners wanted to identify a footprint and scope of work focused on the WUI and community and infrastructure protection. SE Group helped us move from concept to an actual work plan.”
Learn MoreSE Group and Blue Forest are working to promote healthy forests and accelerate wildfire resilience across the western landscape.
Blue Forest is a mission-driven, non-profit organization, leveraging financial innovation to create sustainable investment solutions to environmental challenges. “As a project developer of land management and conservation projects through the Forest Resilience Bond (FRB), we act as a champion of planned actions to motivate financial participation from beneficiary stakeholders that include the USFS, water agencies, power utilities, state agencies, local governments, recreation, insurance and more. We bring together public and private stakeholders that benefit from restoration to share the costs of reimbursing investors over time.”
Since 2022, SE Group has been supporting Blue Forest, Chelan County, and the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest’s efforts to develop a Forest Resilience Bond project in Central Washington.
“SE Group’s extensive experience in environmental planning has helped bring together many partners to develop an implementation plan that is already being used to get ready for work next field season,” Kim Seipp, Managing Director of Science and Research, explains. “For this project, the NEPA-permitted landscape is 75,000 acres, but the Forest and partners wanted to identify a footprint and scope of work focused on the WUI and community and infrastructure protection. SE Group helped us move from concept to an actual work plan.”
“I quickly found that Blue Forest’s values and outside-the-box mindset were well aligned with SE Group’s, which has made the process of working together on complex projects incredibly smooth,” Smith says. “The Forest Resilience Bond process itself is innovative, and combined with the collaborative culture of Blue Forest, we at SE Group have felt empowered to think beyond the typical solutions in our work together.” (Ash Smith, SE Group)
To learn more about this innovative partnership, read Blue Forest’s SE Group Partner Profile written by Signe Stroming.
For more information about SE Group’s forest health and fuels assessment work for wildfire management, contact Ash Smith.