Startup Series: Vibrant Planet

This year, wildfires have raged across the Western US, the Mediterranean, Australia, and parts of Canada. While many worry that the intensity and frequency of these blazes are going to get worse, Vibrant Planet is on a mission to create a cloud-based planning and monitoring tool for agile, adaptive land management at scale. The company harnesses data-driven science and cloud-based technology to help community stakeholders create resiliency plans for forests that take multiple factors into account. Their goal is to help planners and policy makers save lives, avoid trillions of dollars in infrastructure loss, and restore the ability of natural systems to store carbon, deliver clean water, and support biodiversity, local economies, and recreational habits.

If you're curious about wildfires and their relationship to climate change, both in terms of how climate change is resulting in increased wildfire severity and how increased wildfire activity is creating feedback loops that reinforce global warming, you'll appreciate this conversation. And lastly, even in the face of some pretty dire numbers, we appreciate Allison’s optimism about what our forests could look like in the coming centuries, given proper care and maintenance today.

In today’s episode, we cover:

The state of forests in the US and across the globe
Why wildfires are increasing
Intersection between land management and climate change
How some forests need fires to regenerate themselves
Effective forest management by Indigenous Peoples
What we can learn from tribes
How state and federal governments are approaching the issue
Roadblocks that have slowed progress on forest management
Allison's background in tech and transition to climate
Role of software and tech in unlocking collaboration
Stakeholders involved in planning projects
Carbon methodology for fire adapted forests

Enjoy the show!

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Episode recorded July 20, 2022.

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant