The Washington Post is very good about covering environmental issues.
From today's edition:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/20/AR2006032001595.html?referrer=email&referrer=email
"Conservationists Vie To Buy Forest Habitat
Timber Firms' Sell-Off Worries Groups
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 21, 2006; A01
FORT BRAGG, Calif. -- The Big River tract in California's Mendocino County is a sprawling expanse of towering redwoods and Douglas firs, woods that for years have provided an ideal habitat for rare spotted owls and endangered coho salmon and steelhead trout. Now, it's all up for sale.
Big River, neighboring Salmon Creek and dozens of other forests across the nation have come on the market in recent years as timber companies shed holdings that are worth more as real estate than as a source of lumber. The trend has spurred a land rush that has conservation groups scrambling to raise money to buy environmentally sensitive tracts in competition with private investors seeking to snap up the land for development......
.....The sales have attracted limited national attention because they are mostly private transactions and involve local planning decisions, but the stakes are enormous. In the Pacific Northwest, New England, Southeast and parts of the upper Midwest, traditional timber companies or newly emerging timber investment management organizations, known as TIMOs, own vast stretches of forest that rival the national forest system......
.....International Paper Co. spokeswoman Amy J. Sawyer said her company is "contemplating selling some or all" of its 6.8 million acres of forest land scattered across the country and focusing on producing more profitable products such as uncoated papers and packages.
"We're exploring whether there's more value in holding and operating the land or in selling it," Sawyer said. "That's what we're weighing." "
