92 



The Nature Conservancy 



California Regional Office 



785 Market Street, San Francisco, California 94103 



(415) 777-0487 — FAX (4151 777-0244 



SEP Q 7 1993 



September 1, 1993 



Ms. Kate Anderton 

 Legislative Director 

 Representative Dan Heunburg 

 114 Cannon Building 

 Washington, DC 20515 



Dear Ms. Anderton: 



Thank you for supplying us recently with a copy of a letter 

 Congressman Hamburg received from the Pacific Lumber Company 

 concerning the Headwaters Forest, as well as copies of related 

 articles in the local press. That letter may be misleading with 

 respect to The Nature Conservancy's involvement in Headwaters 

 Forest matters; I would like to clarify certain points here. 



I believe you are aware that The Nature Conservancy worked briefly 

 with Pacific Lumber several years ago in an attempt to help find 

 constructive solutions to the ongoing debate over appropriate use 

 of Headwaters Forest land. Our efforts were limited in scope and 

 undertaken with the suppoirt and encouragement of Pacific Lumber. 

 They were intended primarily to help achieve consensus as to the 

 market value of the property. 



As part of these discussions, a professional appraiser was engaged 

 to value the property; the original boundary for the area to be 

 appraised was the area described in the "Forest Forever" 

 initiative, which attempted to delineate areas of old-growth using 

 section lines. The Nature Conservancy felt that in order to 

 preserve the land's value as a healthy old-growth forest it would 

 be important to include in the appraisal area the surrounding 

 upstream lands in the watershed. We suggested that any effort to 

 protect the Headwaters Forest should include at least those 

 additional lands, to shield the old-growth forest from damage due 

 to soil erosion if those upstream lands were ever logged; the 

 appraisal was prepared on this larger area. 



Our suggestion was based on practical experience with watershed 

 ecosystems elsewhere in the state, not on any kind of rigorous 

 scientific analysis of the site or its ecosystem linkages. In 

 fact, our professional staff in California does not have the 

 forestry background needed to make such an analysis — so we supplied 

 Pacific Lumber and the U.S. Forest Service with a list of three 

 biological/ forestry consultants, all of whom we believed had the 

 specific expertise to help the government agencies and Pacific 

 Lumber arrive at an appropriate boundary. 



National Office, 1815 North Lynn Street, Arlington, Virginia 22209 



Rtfvcfrd /'.i/wr 



J» 



