Startup Series: Vibrant Planet

Today's guest is Allison Wolff, Founder and CEO at 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!

You can find me on Twitter @codysimms (me), @mcjpod (podcast) or @mcjcollective (company). You can reach us via email at info@mcjcollective.com, where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Episode recorded July 20, 2022.

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