[at-l] Quick Katahdin Trip

[ellen at clinic.net (Bob C.)]

>"...Somehow, through all that megacorp incest, liquidation logging on
>'protected' land has emerged as the offspring. Katahdin Timberlands, btw,
>operates those six rental cabins at the northern end of the hundred mile
>wilderness, and is currently rebuliding the Abol Bridge." reports TJ.

I think there is confusion here.

 The Katahdin Forest Project protects 241,000 acres directly abutting Baxter
 State Park: The Nature Conservancy has taken title to 41,000 acres of the
 fabled Debsconeag Lakes region and holds a conservation easement on an
 additional 200,000 acres of Maine forest.

The confusion stems from the way the Conservancy structured the deal. To allow
the landowner, Great Northern Paper, to transfer the land and easement, the
Conservancy essentially became one of the company?s mortgage holders. The total
commitment of Conservancy resources is $50 million, much to be paid back over
time, and all well secured by land, wjhich is why GE purchased the NC mortgage.

While financing companies has been anything but standard operating procedure for
the Conservancy or any other conservation organization, this
first-of-its-kind-in-the-world deal proved the only way to protect an area that
encompasses the largest concentration of remote ponds in the Northeast and the
dense forests that buffer Maine?s trademark park.

The  41,000 acres purchased outright and easements on 200,000 acres of other
land was encumbered by a mortgage. To buy the land the NC had to take over
ownership of the mortgage. What it has sold to GE Commercial Finance is the
mortgage. This is a routine procedure routinely done by mortgage holders. The
mortgage on my house was sold to two different financing organizations before I
finally sold my woodlot and paid it off.

All it means is that Great Northern Paper Co. owners will have to mzke its
payments to GE, not NC.

The land remains protected under the terms of the original deal. 41,000 acres to
be managed as wilderness and 200,000 on which cutting will be allowed under the
terms of the easements, but development prohibited.

Weary