Deal to help save N.C. trees

International Paper selling vast tracts of Southern forest

In a land deal touted as an environmental coup in a region booming with development, two conservation groups will buy 218,000 acres of forest from International Paper in parcels across 10 Southern states. The deal includes 77,090 acres in North Carolina, divided among five sites and containing 300 miles of rivers and streams.

International Paper Chairman and CEO John Faraci announced the $300 million deal Tuesday as "the largest private forestland conservation sale in the South, and one of the largest in the United States."

Two nonprofit groups, the Nature Conservancy and the Conservation Fund, said they picked the most environmentally sensitive parcels they could find among millions of acres the world's largest paper company is looking to sell as part of plan to shrink its business and boost profits.

"The forests of the South are among the richest in terms of total number of species of any habitats in the world," said Steve McCormick, president of the Nature Conservancy.

"Given the growth in the South and the rapidly changing landscape," he said, "it is our outlook that many of these areas would in the next 20 years be converted from forests into fully developed landscapes."

The agreement will allow timber harvesting to continue on about three-fourths of the land over the next five years, though not in the most environmentally fragile areas.

"We got fair market value for that land," Faraci said of the $300 million price tag. The acreage is a small slice of the 6.8 million acres Stamford, Conn.-based International Paper owns across the U.S.

The land in 12 Eastern North Carolina counties will help control pollution runoff along 300 miles of streams and riverbanks, Gov. Mike Easley said at a news conference.

Over the next three years, the state plans to buy about 67,000 acres of the North Carolina land from the conservation groups for up to $72 million, according to the Nature Conservancy. The rest will be sold to private owners, but environmental groups will control the timber to protect wildlife.

"This was an opportunity that we could not pass up," Easley said.

The Nature Conservancy has committed to buy 173,000 acres in North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana and Mississippi.

The Conservation Fund will purchase 5,000 acres in Florida and an additional 500 acres in North Carolina, which has the largest overall acreage being purchased. Both groups will jointly purchase 3,900 acres in South Carolina.

Larry Selzer, president of the Conservation Fund, said the deal was a coup considering whopping prices large tracts in the South are fetching from developers, often crowding out conservation groups seeking to buy.

"For the nonprofit community, that's a huge challenge," Selzer said.

About 90 percent of the South's 201 million acres of timberland is owned by private individuals and corporations. A 2002 federal study projected the South to lose 31 million acres to urban development over the next four decades.