Mast Reforestation hatched a plan to restore wildfire-ravaged forests. Investors took notice.
Summary
But restoring the forest isnt, either, with a few thousand acres running a couple million dollars, Grant Canary, co-founder and CEO of Mast Reforestation, told TechCrunch.If youre a land owner and its going to take 60 to 80 years for those trees to grow, any money manager is going to be like, put your money literally in anything else.The biggest cost in reforestation is dealing with the dead, burned trees. Thats the cheapest way to do it, Canary said.Canary said Mast has devised a way to pay for reforestation today, without landowners needing to wait decades to either harvest timber or claim carbon credits. Instead of burning whats left, Mast will collect and bury the trees to prevent decay and sell the carbon credits that result.Mast recently raised $25 million to develop the new business, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. The startups first project will be in an area in Montana affected by the Poverty Flats Fire, which swept through in 2021.Biomass burial also avoids sending more soot into the air, but without proper site preparation, it could still release methane and carbon dioxide.In most soils, the wood decays as microbes munch on the cellulose, releasing methane and carbon dioxide.Mast has a different approach. The startup will entomb the trees in an area rich with clay, which limits the flow of air and water, stifling microbial activity.