The Forest Bioeconomy Symposium: From Fire Risk to Circular Stewardship brings together leaders on September 29–30, 2026, at the Bear River Band of Rohnerville Rancheria's Tish-Non Community Center in Loleta, California, immediately preceding the California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force Meeting.

This two-day working gathering convenes state and federal policymakers, elected officials, tribal economic development leaders, philanthropic funders, investors, regional manufacturers, and university partners around a single goal: catalyzing the market infrastructure, investment relationships, and policy pathways needed to build a thriving circular forest stewardship economy in the Redwood Region.

The Symposium brings together the expertise, investment, and partnership needed to make that goal real. State policy leadership comes through Patrick Wright, Director of the California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force. Global wood product innovation is represented by Professor Dr. Raoul Klingner, Director of Fraunhofer WKI, one of the world's leading wood products research institutions. Dr. John Warner, Co-Founder of Green Chemistry and Presidential Green Chemist, brings deep expertise in biomaterials science and the structural challenges of moving innovations from discovery to commercial scale. Alongside these voices, the Symposium convenes the tribal, philanthropic, conservation finance, investor, manufacturing, and university partners who will carry this work forward on the ground.

A central thread of the Symposium is Cal Poly Humboldt's new academic programs in Climate Technology, Natural Resource Management, and Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and the partnership pathways through which private industry, tribal nations, and conservation finance institutions can help shape curriculum, host internships, sponsor research, and invest in the workforce this region will need. The markets this work supports span carbon and payment for ecosystem services, certified disaster-resilient building materials, wood product innovation, and conservation finance, all anchored by a proposed ISO-accredited Certified Materials Testing Laboratory on the Samoa Peninsula.

Together, this convening translates high-level policy and technical innovation into concrete investment pathways and delivery partnerships, turning forest biomass and wildfire risk into certified materials, market infrastructure, and durable rural economic opportunity across the Redwood Region.