State Conservancies Award Nearly $14 Million of Climate Bond Funds for Wildfire Resilience Projects
In April of 2025, Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill 100 which allocated over $170 million in accelerated, or “early action” Climate Bond funding to conservancies for urgent forest and vegetation management across California. The California State Coastal Conservancy (Coastal Conservancy) and the Sierra Nevada Conservancy (SNC) have moved quickly to ensure these funds are being distributed to enable progress on-the-ground.
November 20,2025 – Coastal Conservancy Awards Over $11 Million for Wildfire Resilience: The Board of the State Coastal Conservancy awarded over $11 million for ten projects that aim to reduce the risk and impact of catastrophic wildfires along the coast. Five of these projects received $9.4 million in accelerated funding from the Climate Bond (Prop 4).
- Esselen Tribe of Monterey County: $1,250,000 to plan and implement a series of cultural fire trainings that include live fire cultural burning operations on 50 to 500 acres of land.
- La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians: $2,900,000 to implement critical fuel reduction treatments and cultural burning on 516 acres along the Highway 76 corridor and to provide community fire preparedness training.
- Mendocino County Fire Safe Council: $803,000 to continue their free community chipping program, implement volunteer workdays, and develop a sustainability plan, over three years.
- University of California San Diego: $1,400,000 to remove Eucalyptus trees and restore the native chaparral ecosystem on a 30-acre site to improve wildfire resiliency and to serve as a biochar demonstration project.
- Sempervirens Fund: $3,050,000 to undertake the Big Basin Redwood Wildfire Resilience Project, consisting of vegetation fuels reduction and habitat enhancement on 215 acres in the old-growth coast redwood area of Big Basin Redwood State Park.
Additionally, five projects were awarded $1,665,000 in accelerated Climate Bond funding from the Department of Conservation’s Regional Forest and Fire Capacity Program.
December 12, 2025 – Sierra Nevada Conservancy Awards $4.6 Million in Wildfire and Forest Resilience Grants to Help Protect Communities: SNC’s Board approved three separate grants totaling nearly $4.6 million to fund projects that will reduce fuels and create fuel breaks in efforts to restore forest health and protect nearby communities from wildfire. The three grants from SNC’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Directed Grant Program will fund projects in Butte, Mono, and Madera counties.