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		Nature Conservancy Magazine: Autumn 2006 Nature Conservancy Magazine Sale of the Century Up Close Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom Hunter, Angler, Conservationist The Stamp of Conservation Nature Stories Podcast Nature Landmarks Nature Books Nature Travel Nature Preserves Subscribe Previous Issues

Sale of the Century

Page 3

Canoeing on the black water of the Perdido River, Alabama © Beth Young Pitcher plant bog, Perdido River, Alabama © Beth Young View slideshows of the forests of: Alabama Maine South Carolina Virginia Wisconsin Learn more about these conservation deals Alabama Arkansas Florida Georgia Louisiana Maine Mississippi North Carolina South Carolina Tennessee Virginia Wisconsin Forest Conservation From rainforests to pine woods to the boreal forests of the northern latitudes, forests blanket nearly one-third of Earth’s land mass. They harbor in their shady depths an astounding variety and abundance of life. Communities of people everywhere rely on forests for their livelihoods and survival. The Nature Conservancy and our Global Forest Partnership are working to conserve forests in sites across the US, Latin America, Asia Pacific and Africa.

A New Kind of Conservation
The millions of acres of IP land that the Conservancy wasn’t able to purchase will remain forested—at least for the time being. “Those properties won’t be deforested,” says IP’s Haines. “Part of our supply of wood fiber will continue to come from the lands we sold, because we obtained fiber-supply agreements for all those properties.”

Under IP’s purchase agreements, its former timberlands will continue to be logged under the guidelines of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative for 10 to 50 years, depending on the parcel.
After that, however, TIMOs and other investors will look to sell to the highest bidder. Elliman of the Open Space Institute fears much of that land will be developed even if today’s hot real estate market cools off: “That will leave a lot of these timber investors in distress, which means they’ll probably chop the land into smaller parcels and sell it to liquidators who would take everything off the land.”

Forest Service projections concur. The agency’s 2005 report Forests on the Edge estimates that more than 44 million acres of private forestland—an area as large as New England—will likely undergo “dramatic increases in housing development” over the next 30 years, and almost all of it will take place in the eastern half of the country. (The lion’s share of the forests in the West is publicly owned.)

In this new TIMO era, conservationsists may look on logging as a preferred alternative to the threat of real estate development. “Sustainably managed forests can be consistent with our conservation goals, but once you fragment a piece of property into house lots, it becomes very, very difficult,” says the Conservancy’s Ginn.

The Conservancy is now working with timber companies to get more long-term protection for its money by purchasing conservation easements on huge swaths of land. Such easements, which generally cost a quarter to half as much as an outright purchase, halt development but allow sustainable logging. In the Wisconsin and Southern-states deals, the Conservancy purchased most of the lands outright, and will work with the states to have them set aside as state parks, reserves or wildlife management areas. On some of the lands, trees will be selectively cut, providing jobs for local communities; but massive development is forever precluded, guaranteeing habitat for wide-ranging forest creatures.

“These are huge issues for us in the Southeast: How do you balance man and nature out there?” says Tavia McCuean, director of the Conservancy’s Georgia chapter. “Can you protect an area’s biodiversity and its way of life at the same time?”

The arrangement makes sense to loggers: With land prices escalating, the sale of easements is often the only way to make sustainable, long-term forestry possible. “Ordinarily, the price an investor has to pay for these timberlands is so high that it almost necessitates that they cut down the trees and fragment the properties to make their returns,” explains John Tomlin of Conservation Forestry, a conservation-minded TIMO that partnered with the Conservancy to purchase land from IP. “By buying the easement, the Conservancy allowed us to buy the underlying property at a price that allows us to make a competitive return as a long-term timber manager under a conservation blueprint agreed on ahead of time. That’s the elegance of this arrangement: It works for everyone.”

The public benefits as well. In the Wisconsin transaction, for example, Conservation Forestry and another firm, Forest Investment Associates, acquired 63,378 acres for $44.6 million. Virtual-ly all of that timberland is encumbered by a conservation easement negotiated with the Conservancy that ensures continued public access to the forests for hunting, fishing, hiking and other recreational activities. Meanwhile, the state of Wisconsin will put up $14 million to purchase and protect an ecologically vital 5,629-acre tract in the upper reaches of the Pine and Popple rivers.

“This is certainly a great thing for the state of Wisconsin, and it could never have happened without The Nature Conservancy,” says Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, who notes the importance of maintaining forestry jobs for the area’s economy. “One of our great challenges in Wisconsin,” he adds, “is to maintain our great northern forest, which covers the whole northern third of our state, and maintain public access for people who hunt, fish and camp. It’s really who we are in this state.” 

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