Sale of the Century

With huge swaths of Eastern forests up for grabs, the Conservancy moved quickly to protect 700,000 acres. But what will become of the woodlands that didn’t make the cut?
[Virginia] a $231 million deal between IP and the Conservancy for land in 10 Southern states, secured 212,000 acres of some of the most biologically valuable sites sites in the eastern United States, including tracts of 500-year-old bald cypress trees in Virginia and North Carolina, and miles of in-land maritime forests along Georgia’s Altamaha River. The deal was the largest financial commitment in the Conservancy’s 55-year history. Despite the conservation records being set, there is a sobering side to these huge deals: The land they protect is only a tiny fraction of the forests that have been put up for sale in recent years as the forest-products industry has divested itself of its extensive U.S. landholdings. The Wisconsin and Southern-states deals protected nearly 280,000 acres, but that represents less than 5 percent of the 6.8 million acres IP put on the block last summer.

News notes are courtesy of Southern Forests Network News Notes
www.southernsustainableforests.org