As wildfires grow worse due to climate change, reforestation solutions are necessary for both revitalizing ecosystems and fighting the warming that caused them in the first place. DroneSeed has a high-tech, simple solution: its FAA approved drones carry and drop seeds over any terrain that has been destroyed by wildfires. Grant Canary, CEO of DroneSeed, joins Closing Bell to discuss the company's unique tech, its involvement in carbon offsets, and more. 

Closing Bell

DroneSeed's Tech Helps Reforest Devastated Areas After Wildfires -- Which Are Growing Worse

let's switch gears. Wildfires have long been an issue out west, but climate change has made the fire season longer and more destructive in recent years, 2022 is already on track for a record breaking wildfire season in the U. S. Our next guest has a solution, drone seed provides what it calls a one step shop solution for planting areas that have been destroyed by wildfires called reforestation. It even has special FAA approval for its seeding process joining us. Now to talk about it is grant canary ceo of drone seed grant. Welcome to the show. Wildfire season started early this year. As you well know, accu weather is predicting that over eight million acres could be burned just this year. Where you already gearing up to provide reforestation solutions. Yeah, we've got teams that are out doing reforestation evaluations in new Mexico in the southwest, big area that's been hit real early. Um we see a lot in the rocky inner mountain region and then of course the west coast, which is where we've been focused for the last uh Really several years but then silver seed, which we acquired in 2020 130 year old company has a long history of supporting and being a community resource for really land managers that are affected by fire and going through that a very disruptive process. Like hey how do we get reforestation done? Where does the seed come from? Uh what can I do to augment and improve how fast we get a response put together and where did the ceiling come from? And where do we, how do we pay for it all? Tell us about your technology and what you call your one stop shop seating process. Yes. So um we've got two companies drone seed, which is a tech company uh five years built up and then we've got silver cd, 130 year old company. We take a land manager who's affected by fire. And land managers are customers are timber companies, there non profits, their government agencies, both state and federal, their small family forests, their tribal nations and they all need the same thing. They need seed. They need a way to get it out to site. That's the drones. We then follow up with seedlings which are trees that are grown in the nursery and then we finance it all with carbon offsets utilizing a new methodology that allows funding for reforestation that hasn't been there in the past. Grant. I want to know more about these seeds, primarily what species you're drones are dropping? Are they genetically modified to maximize growth? Yeah. So we we often get the question like are they, are they multiple species? Are they Gmo? And the answer is yes. We utilize multiple species eight in our flagship project with carbon offsets from native conifers. And that's the next question, are they native? They're not genetically modified. We collect seeds from wild, which gives us a lot of diversity in the seed supply. Um and then we're able to put those out onto site in a very, very rapid way, Like I mentioned earlier, you did get FAA approval back in 2020 for your drone activity. What makes your company so unique in this regard? Yeah. Um we're able to first go out there and assess with the land manager, great what's the severity and as as mentioned at the top here, the severity of fires have been increasing. So what many of us learned in like high school bio forest burns, forestry grows, that probability is dropping more and more and more and at the same time the size and severity of fires is increasing. So how the supply chain is being overwhelmed. So what we've been able to do is on the seed supply, we're able to plug those customers in and if they need seed, that's where we're able to help. We've already expanded silver seed become the largest private seed bank in the west. If they need seedlings, there's a limit on the growth space. The nursery square footage are Understanding here as a company that grows millions of seedlings is that there is a massive backlog where in a lot of cases if you have a fire not getting seedlings until 2025, because because of that backlog. So we're able to step in and assist there and were able to get better tools out for reforestation first with the drones and then following up with the seedlings that were growing and they're able to fund that in a way that hasn't existed. So By being that one stop shop we have, we are not bottlenecked at any of the steps in the process. And that's incredibly valuable because otherwise if you're, if you're just one of those components, you get hit with a delay and then that causes a lot of extra cost and that causes causes a lot of extra work because competitive species come in invasives and then you have to eradicate them before you can get in there and reforest. I want to go back to something you just said when it comes to funding because you're partially funded by companies purchasing carbon offsets like you mentioned a few moments ago. Tell us about this and how you actually provide a tangible carbon offset solution. Yeah, a lot of work goes into really good reforestation and we work with Climate Action reserve there a third party and there is a ton of monitoring, reporting and verification. So there is a one year site visit by a third party. Forester comes out and make sure that a minimum of one year, the trees are alive, they're in the right density etcetera. After the, after we've seated and after we've planted and then for the next 100 years our projects, there is a funded one year report and five year site visit by an accredited land trust who has a conservation easement on the property and it's funded with an endowment as part of the project set up costs. An endowment just like a university invested in the market provides a return and creates that funding source for that monitoring reporting and verification over the next 100 years to protect the land. And then there's a third feature and this is why like a lot of work goes into this, which is an insurance buffer pool. What happens if over the next 100 years it burns again. Well, just like auto, just like health insurance. Every project contributes in a portion of offsets. And then there, if there is a reversal like a fire, they're retired from that pool. So a purchaser like Shopify who purchased our, our offsets is able to know that it's either coming from the project or it's coming from that insurance pool. So that gives a lot of trust transparency and verification to any offset fighters. Grand Canary ceo of drone seed. I'm so fascinated by this project. We hope you come back to discuss. Thank you so much