Burying trees to save forests?

“Good fires" naturally regenerate forests. But a rise in high-severity blazes in the American West are leaving behind barren moonscapes filled with dead trees. These scorched trees act as hazardous fuel for future fires, but clearing them to replant the landscape is astronomically expensive. Add to that a massive shortage in the conifer seed supply chain, and land managers simply don't have the resources to regenerate these forests on their own.

Grant Canary, CEO and founder of Mast Reforestation, is changing that.  

Today, Mast Reforestation tackles the ultimate financial bottleneck by burying fire-killed trees deep underground in oxygen-free clay vaults. This permanently stores the timber's carbon, generating high-quality credits that pay for the expensive work of clearing the land and hand-planting new, fire-resilient forests.

In this episode, host Lara Pierpoint talks with Grant about the realities of shutting down a beloved hardware project, the financial arbitrage of buying a legacy seed bank, and how founders should make the case for dramatic startup pivots to their investors.

Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced and edited by Ross Kenyon, Anne Bailey, and Stephen Lacey. Sean Marquand is our technical director. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this show, subscribe to Latitude Media’s newsletter.