Wildfire season now returns as a test of our readiness, not just a force of nature. That’s why our very first Nature Finance Action Lab focused on financing fire resilience in Canada.
On June 6, we brought together leaders from 20 of the Nature Investment Hub’s partner organizations for the launch of our Nature Finance Action Lab, a new action-oriented series exclusively for Hub partners. This series provides an informal space where partners bring real-time nature finance challenges or opportunities for other partners to engage with and help solve or advance. This is one vehicle through which the Hub builds community, which is necessary for enabling impact in our three impact areas of market building, capacity building, and thought leadership.
In the first lab, Jeffrey Brown of Nature Focus posed a core question to partners: How do we finance our way out of reactive firefighting and into proactive, Indigenous-led resilience?
Jeffrey Brown opened by highlighting the urgent need for proactive wildfire mitigation in Canada. Despite rising suppression costs exceeding $1 billion annually, preventative measures—like fuel treatments, prescribed burns, and Indigenous-led fire management—remain underfunded. Current programs are fragmented and lack the scale and long-term funding needed.
He emphasized that traditional budgeting cycles are not designed for large, preventative efforts that require multi-year commitments and cross-sector coordination. He called for innovative finance tools like the Forest Resilience Bond, carbon-linked outcomes funding, and blended capital stacks to shift from reactive firefighting to building long-term ecological and community resilience.
Jeffrey shared two international models relevant to the Canadian context.
Jeffrey also provided a live demo of Vibrant Planet’s decision-support platform, showcasing how spatial data and scenario planning can inform land management strategies that enhance wildfire resilience.
At the heart of the session’s framing and subsequent discussions was a focus on enabling Indigenous leadership.
As Hub partners shared their roles in wildfire resilience, suggested useful data, tools and partnerships, and pointed to key players in the space in Canada, six key takeaways emerged.
Some partners are exploring new funding pathways for wildfire mitigation, management and restoration activities, including discussions with insurers and other private sector actors. Yet, no one has stepped into the role of architect—bringing the necessary players together to build a scalable financing solution.
Indigenous organizations are already centering wildfire resilience—and specifically Indigenous fire stewardship and guardians programs—in their organizational strategies and work plans. They are leading in this space and are well positioned—and essential—to co-lead the development of a wildfire resilience bond in Canada. Partner organizations supporting the development and implementation of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) are also considering how wildfire resilience strategies can be meaningfully woven into these efforts.
Partners are actively engaged in various wildfire mitigation, management, and restoration activities on the ground. Sustainable, long-term funding is essential to support Indigenous fire guardian programs and community-led wildfire resilience initiatives. This includes access to implementation funding for priority activities identified by Indigenous communities, as well as funding to support Indigenous-led projects, training, logistics, and capacity development.
Partners are already in conversation with insurance companies, reinsurers, and parametric product providers who have signaled interest but are not yet fully engaged on the investment side. These conversations reveal a growing recognition that wildfire is not just an environmental issue, but a material financial risk. Rising wildfire losses are driving up premiums and exposing the limitations of reactive approaches. Global examples, such as California's Forest Resilience Bond, demonstrate that when insurers are part of the solution, it becomes possible to shift from costly disaster response to proactive risk reduction.
Canadian insurers—and other key stakeholders like municipalities, utilities, forest industries, and Indigenous governments—have a window of opportunity to help co-design financial instruments that reward resilience. With the right structure, wildfire resilience bonds can share the costs and benefits of proactive stewardship, stabilizing landscapes, and reducing financial exposure. The timing is critical: as insurers face mounting climate risks, their willingness to invest in resilience is growing. Now is the moment to bring them to the table.
Partners emphasized the need for socioeconomic data—including monetized benefits—and economic valuation of Indigenous-led approaches to build the business case for investment. Partners shared that a wide range of research activities are already underway—including desk research, field-based resilience studies, modeling, and economic analyses. These efforts span Indigenous-led forestry practices, fire stewardship, post-wildfire restoration strategies, and carbon finance. Collectively, this work has the potential to inform return on investment (ROI) and cost–benefit analyses that build the business case and support the design and deployment of financial instruments for wildfire resilience.
Uncertainty around jurisdiction and land tenure will continue to deter investment. There is also ongoing concern around legal liability risks associated with cultural and prescribed burns, suggesting a need for clear, enabling policies that support Indigenous-led and community-based fire stewardship practices.
In closing the Lab, Jeffrey Brown indicated Nature Focus will lead the development of a Canadian Fire Resilience Bond model, with the goal of launching a pilot structure by 2026. Nature Focus aims to co-design this with Indigenous Nations, insurers, and infrastructure funds. The prototype will identify a target landscape, define outcome payments (such as carbon, biodiversity, and avoided-loss), and secure anchor partners for governance and investment. An invitation is open for collaboration, recognizing that addressing this collective challenge will require collective action. If you are interested in engaging in this work, please reach out to Jeffrey Brown directly at [email protected].
Photo license: Creative Commons