Plum Creek Timber Co has agreed to buy 650,000 acres of forest in Michigan for US$345m.
The company will become the state’s biggest private landowner when it completes the purchase from Escanaba Timber later this year.
Meanwhile, International Paper is to sell 450,000 acres of land in the same region of Michigan, the Upper Peninsula.
Conservationists have raised concerns that a spate of new forest ownerships could lead to less public access in the forests, as well as more development in ecologically sensitive areas.
But a spokesperson for Plum Creek, which owns about 8 million acres nationwide, said the company opened much of its land for public recreation and also abided by the rules of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative.
