Welcome to the

North Yuba Forest Partnership Update

Formed in 2019, the North Yuba Forest Partnership is comprised of a diverse group of nine organizations passionate about forest health and the resilience of the North Yuba watershed.

This newsletter aims to provide updates on wildfire risk reduction work happening on the North Yuba landscape and serve as a starting point for those interested in learning more about the partnership.

Why North Yuba?

The North Yuba landscape stretches from New Bullards Bar Reservoir east up to the Sierra Crest along Highway 49. The watershed includes substantial forest habitat, is an important source of water to downstream users, supports high biodiversity, offers excellent opportunities for recreation, and is home to the communities of Camptonville, Downieville and Sierra City.

The forest within the North Yuba watershed is unhealthy, overstocked and remains one of the largest contiguous unburned landscapes in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

North Yuba Forest Partnership Goals

Improve and restore forest health and resilience

Reduce the risk of high-severity wildfire

Protect and secure water supplies

Protect communities from the risks of high-severity wildfire and climate change

Partnership Updates

North Yuba Forest Partnership named “Partnership of the Year” by U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region

The North Yuba Forest Partnership was recognized as “Partnership of the Year” by the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region for its forest restoration work and collaboration on the North Yuba landscape. The partnership formed in 2017 and has been working to advance critical forest restoration projects that reduce the risk of wildfire throughout the North Yuba watershed on the Tahoe National Forest. Partners include U.S. Forest Service-Tahoe National Forest, Yuba Water Agency, The Nature Conservancy, South Yuba River Citizens League, Camptonville Community Partnership, Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe, National Forest Foundation, Sierra County and Blue Forest.

The partners that comprise the North Yuba Forest Partnership have contributed resources to increase the pace and scale of forest resilience work. Learn more about the North Yuba Forest Partnership by visiting YubaForest.org.

Yuba I Forest Resilience Bond

Blue Forest’s first Forest Resilience Bond (FRB), the Yuba I FRB, launched in 2018 with restoration work completed in 2023. This project protects 15,000 acres in the Tahoe National Forest, in the upper headwaters of the North Yuba watershed. The Yuba I FRB helped to catalyze the formation of the North Yuba Forest Partnership.

The FRB has been revolutionary in increasing the pace and scale of ecological restoration work on the Tahoe National Forest. The FRB is an innovative financing mechanism that taps into private capital to finance forest restoration projects on public lands. Since its pilot, partners have continued to come together to scale up, resulting in the partnership's 275,000-acre North Yuba Landscape Resilience Project.

Learn More

Tahoe National Forest receives $16 million to continue wildfire risk reduction work in the North Yuba watershed

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that the Biden-Harris Administration is investing nearly $500 million from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to expand work on the USDA Forest Service’s Wildfire Crisis Strategy to reduce risk to communities, critical infrastructure and natural resources from the nation’s ongoing wildfire crisis. The Tahoe National Forest is slated to receive $16 million to continue critical wildfire risk reduction work on the North Yuba landscape. Identified as an area at high-risk for wildfire, the North Yuba landscape has now received over $178 million of Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding.

Fire and Forestry: Scaling Restoration Efforts to Protect a Watershed

"Fire and Forestry: Scaling Restoration Efforts to Protect a Watershed” is a film by Blue Forest that builds on the success of the Yuba I Forest Resilience Bond and touches on some of the challenges the North Yuba Forest Partnership is experiencing in order to increase the pace and scale of the vital forest restoration work needed now within the North Yuba watershed.

Watch Short Film

Check out the kind of work happening on the North Yuba landscape

About Us

The North Yuba Forest Partnership is a diverse group of nine organizations passionate about forest health and the resilience of the North Yuba River watershed. Together, the partners are working on an unprecedented scale to collaboratively plan, analyze, finance, and implement forest restoration across 275,000 acres of the watershed.

Land Acknowledgement: The North Yuba Forest Partnership recognizes that the North Yuba River watershed resides within the Ancestral and Traditional homelands of the Nisenan Tribe and intertribal regions of the Mountain Maidu, Konkow and Washoe. These Tribes exist today and retain their relationships with the forest. We commit to the continued inclusion of their voices in this project.

This communication has been sent by the Tahoe National Forest on behalf of the North Yuba Forest Partnership.