Preserving Forests from Georgia to the Pacific

Wisconsin’s Pelican Forest is ideal?habitat for moose and bald eagles

With its lush and tranquil streams, the Pelican River Forest?in northern Wisconsin provides hikers, hunters, fisherman and other outdoor enthusiasts with a quintessential Northwoods experience. It is also the ideal habitat for moose, wolves, American marten, bald eagles and cerulean warblers. Straddling the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds, the forest is important for preserving water quality and also serves as a bridge that links protected forests to the north and south.

Like many former commercial timberlands in the Northwoods, the Pelican River Forest was subject to the sale of small tracts for cabin or home development—chipping away at the opportunity to maintain an intact forested landscape and potentially restricting public recreation.

The Conservation Fund, a nonprofit, stepped in to eliminate these dual threats by buying the vast woodlands, partly through a $5 million program-related investment (PRI) from the Richard King Mellon Foundation. A PRI is a low-interest loan that provides bridge financing for the recipient to begin a project immediately, allowing them more time to secure other funding to complete the project. The purchase was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to protect the largest privately owned, unprotected forest left in Wisconsin, ensuring sustainable forest management and improving access for recreational use, said Clint Miller, central Midwest regional director of The Conservation Fund.??

The Conservation Fund purchased the property from The Forestland Group in October 2021. The next step is to secure the permanent conservation by conveying conservation easements to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The easements require sustainable forest management and public access. These permanent protections help secure ecological benefits such as water quality and species protection along with the economic benefits of forest-dependent jobs and tourism.?

The Foundation in 2021 also awarded PRIs to two other major land acquisition projects.

The Foundation provided a $15 million PRI to The Conservation Fund to help secure a portion of a vast working forest landscape in the Pacific Northwest. When the SDS Lumber Company announced its intent?

to sell 96,000 acres of ecologically and economically vital forests in Oregon and Washington, stretching from Mount Adams to Mount Hood and spanning the White Salmon and Klickitat rivers, The Conservation Fund and a group of like-minded for-profit companies implemented a solution to safeguard it from second-home development and timber liquidation. The Foundation’s PRI supported The Conservation Fund’s affiliate’s purchase of more than 35,000 acres. The rivers there are world-class destinations for whitewater kayakers and rafters and home to diverse species, including three species of wild salmon.??

In the South, the Foundation supported conservation efforts along?

the Altamaha River in Georgia. The Foundation awarded a $5 million PRI to The Conservation Fund to purchase 6,153 acres, including six miles of riverfront, from Rayonier Inc. The interim ownership will give the organization time to put in place long-term conservation strategies while sustaining an estimated 50 timber jobs. Protecting Beards Creek Forest is also vital for species of federal concern such as the gopher tortoise, a species dependent on the fire ecology of the native longleaf pine forest.

Through those three projects—together a $25 million investment—the Foundation in 2021 significantly expanded its already considerable national conservation efforts. Since 2011, the Foundation now has deployed more than two dozen PRIs for working-forest conservation, valued at over $160 million, helping to protect, in partnership with The Conservation Fund, more than 700,000 acres of working-forest lands.??

All told, over its nearly 75-year history, the Foundation has conserved more than 4.5 million acres of environmentally precious land and habitats in all 50 states, an area larger than the state of Connecticut.