More than 270,000 acres of private forest in Michigan are to be protected for public use, following a deal between charitable/conservation groups and a timber investment company.
The agreement comes two years after conservation groups lost a battle to buy the land, located in the state’s upper peninsula.
The deal will see groups pay the owner of the land, Forestland Group LLC, US$57.9m to restrict development and carry out timber harvesting under sustainable forestry guidelines.
Forestland will continue to own the land, except for 23,000 acres which will be purchased by the Nature Conservancy.
