Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Conservation Agreement Signed

International Paper, The Natural Conservancy's Arkansas Field Office and the Arkansas Heritage Commission recently signed an agreement to cooperatively manage ecologically unique sites on International Paper lands in Arknasas.

The goal of this partnership, called the Unique Areas Cooperative Management Program, is to help International Paper manage unique areas in ways that protect their ecological values.

International Paper is Arkansas' largest private landowner, owning approximately one million acres of land in the state for the purpose of growing and producing forest products. Contained within this ownership are sites which have special ecological, scientific and aesthetic values such as unique plant sites, state champion trees, heron rookeries, endangered species sites, blackland prairies and distinctive geological formations.

Under the Unique Areas Cooperative Management Program, candidate sites are identified on International Paper land and enrolled in the program through a management plan developed and agreed on by the partners. The Nature Conservancy and Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission provide the expertise to ensure management plans are designed to protect each site's ecological uniqueness.

While a board spectrum of management techniques could result, examples range from tree removal to allow sunlight on the forest floor to complete site preservation.

"We are committed to implementation of the Sustaiable Forestry Initiative," said Robert Hintze, International Paper's Mid-South manager. "One of the objectives of this initiative is to manage company lands of ecologic, geologic or historic significance in a manner that considers their specail qualities. This program helps us achieve that objective.

According to Harold Grimmet, director of the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, this partnership is a continuation of previous cooperative efforts in forest management and ecological protection between his organization and International Paper.

"We are pleased to take this opportunity," Grimmet said, "to build on our precedent-setting Bayou Dorcheat Ecosystem Management project and hope that what International Paper and our agency undertook two years ago, along with the broader roles we are accepting now, will prove to be an attractive example for other corporate landowners."

"This cooperative agreement represents a strong partnership between a corporate citizen, a state agency and a non-profit all committed to the conservatin of Arkansas," Nancy DeLamar, vice president and state director of the Nature Conservancy's Arkansas Field Office, said. "It truly takes all of us working together to ensure that the natural lands of our great state remain natural."

The Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage, identifies the state's native plant species and nongame animal species that may need special conservation attention and provides appropriate protection for these elements of the state's natural heritage that have statewide significance.

The Nature Conservancy is an international non-rofit conservation organization committed to the preservation of natural diversity, Its mission is to preserve the plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive.

The Conservancy's Arkansas Field office and its 4,000 members have helped to conserve more than 200,000 acres of natural land in Arkansas since the office opened in Little Rock in 1982. To date, the Nature Conservancy has been responsible for the protection of more than nine million acres in 50 states and Canada.

"We've had a long working relationship with people in both of these organizations," Ron Davidson, manager of Arkadelphia Land and Timber, said. "We value their knowledge and look forward to working with them to make sure we manage these special sites in the right way."

International Paper, which employs more than 3,300 Arkansans, has 29 statewide operations in 18 communities, including Gurdon.