Keystone Policy Center presents private‑public plan to expand wildfire and watershed funding; Council to follow up Aug. 25

Julie Shapiro, who leads natural resources work at the Keystone Policy Center, told the Forest Health Council’s Resources Committee that a new, privately incubated effort to advance wildfire and watershed resilience is focusing on sustainable public and private funding, capacity building and creating a forest restoration economy.

The initiative—referred to in the meeting as “work” and described by Shapiro as a rapidly evolving coalition of utilities, nonprofits, federal and state agencies, and private partners—produced a scoping report after about "50 or 60" interviews. "The purpose is to advance statewide sustainable public and private funding and other strategies to enhance the pace and scale of wildfire risk reduction and watershed resilience," Shapiro said when outlining the group’s mission and vision.

Why it matters: Committee members said the Forest Health Council’s existing forest resilience planning guide could serve as a practical framework to match local needs with funding opportunities. Shapiro and members agreed that local capacity constraints, difficulty securing required matching funds, and mismatched grant timelines limit communities’ ability to move from planning to treatments—problems the initiative hopes to address by pairing technical assistance and planning funds with treatment financing.

What the initiative proposed: Shapiro sketched four broad strategy buckets the initiative is pursuing: (1) statewide public funding (non‑TABOR revenue options or similar mechanisms), (2) local public funding (including tools such as forest improvement districts), (3) private‑public financing approaches (pooled funds, revolving loans and other credit instruments), and (4) investments to grow a forest restoration economy (workforce development, markets for biomass, and contractor capacity). She said Keystone is serving as a backbone organization while an action team and a leadership roundtable provide governance and executive‑level support.

On private partners and limits: Shapiro and other speakers repeatedly warned that private money alone will not close the financing gap. "Private sector can't solve this," she said, adding that private finance, philanthropy and corporate advocacy can nevertheless be catalytic. Ben, a private‑sector participant affiliated in the meeting with conservation investment activities, outlined pilots including an incubator for biomass‑based businesses to absorb forest byproducts and expand local contractor capacity: "We have ... been exploring how to create an incubator for biomass‑based businesses in Colorado," he said. He emphasized that private actors can also bring political influence: "It is a major economic issue," he said, arguing that corporate voices can elevate wildfire mitigation on state and federal agendas even if large private gifts alone are insufficient.

Committee response and next steps: Committee members asked for a clearer picture of participating private organizations, possible risk profiles for private investment, and how the council’s planning guide could be used to aggregate common local needs across jurisdictions. Shapiro said the initiative will circulate slides and the scoping report and invited committee members to an Aug. 25 work session that will deep‑dive into the four strategy buckets. Several members agreed to be added to the initiative’s mailing list to follow future work and pilot reporting.

Meeting close: The committee adjourned after a brief administrative exchange; a motion to adjourn was made and the meeting ended with no formal roll call recorded.