Trends with Benefits #97: Beyond the Trees with Laurie Wayburn and Anthony Gibbs

This episode explores a project that is meaningful to us here at VanEck. For the better part of the last year, members of VanEck have been working on a documentary that highlights the van Eck Forests, over 9,400 acres of conserved and highly-productive forest managed sustainably by Pacific Forest Trust. Instrumental to the creation of the documentary was production studio Imaginary Forces. On this episode, I speak with Laurie Wayburn, Co-founder and President of Pacific Forest Trust (and a returning Trends with Benefits guest), and Anthony Gibbs, Creative Director at Imaginary Forces. Laurie and Anthony share the inspiration behind the documentary and the significance of its story.

The documentary Beyond the Trees showcases the history and unique forestry management of the van Eck Forests in Northern California and Oregon. For decades, the forests have been managed using an innovative model at a cross-section of conservation, climate, and commerce.

The fight to restore our native forests began long ago when Fred van Eck, an investment manager passionate about forests, met Laurie Wayburn, a pioneer in forestry restoration. Today, the forests operate as living laboratories to test out innovations in forest management, showing how forests can generate economic returns while also restoring biodiversity, healthy watersheds, and climate change resilience.

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Beyond the Trees with Laurie Wayburn and Anthony Gibbs

Show Notes:

01:45 The Inspiration Behind Beyond the Trees

05:03 Pacific Forest Trust’s Unique Forestry Management Model

09:42 The Filmmaking Process

14:45 Helping Forests Heal

21:05 The Role of Private Forests in Combatting Climate Change

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