Company pledges to be more “forthcoming”
Q&A with Plum Creek CEO Rick Holley
By Kellyn Brown, 7-30-08
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| Henry Ricklets, vice president Northern Resources and Manufacturing, left, and Rick Holley, president and chief executive officer of Plum Creek. - Lido Vizzutti/Flathead Beacon | |
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A sluggish housing market, skeptical politicians and an increasingly cynical media have tarnished both Plum Creek Timber Company’s profits and image in recent months. While CEO Rick Holley acknowledged he doesn’t foresee a short-term fix for the former, his presence in Western Montana – meeting with newspapers and municipalities, and emphasizing a need for renewed “transparency” – showed the company is approaching public relations with renewed zeal.
Q: Recently, Plum Creek agreed to sell 320,000 acres of its land for $510 million in what Sen. Max Baucus, who secured federal funds to pay for half the total, called “the largest land purchase, for conservation purposes, in American history.” What other plans does Plum Creek have for its massive landholdings? Long term, can you estimate how much of your land will remain in timber, developed, sold to REITS (real estate investment trusts) or TIMOS (timber investment management organizations), and how much will be conserved?
Holley: Today we have roughly 1.2 million acres (in Montana) – this is before this conservation transaction (the Montana Legacy Project), which will bring us down to let’s call it 900,000 acres. If you go back five years, we sold about 210,000 acres, and 85 percent of that 210,000 acres was either sold for conservation or sold to other timber companies. We sold in the last five years about 27,000 acres that we call “higher and better use land” that were sold to largely individuals, who in many cases will eventually build a home on it. We’ve only done about 3,000 acres that we would categorize as development in the last five years. Now as we go ahead five years, it depends on the economic situation, we will probably sell 20,000 to 30,000 acres for higher and better use. We will probably have 3,000 to 5,000 acres, a similar number in the next five years, that will be developed. Now anything that gets developed has to go through the counties and go through platting and approval process. It’s going to be whether we get approval, whether it makes senses, the economic conditions, whether anyone will buy it. As far as conservation in the future, my guess is we’ve done so much conservation in Montana that there will be more. We don’t know where it is today. But I think it’s safe to say, even before this 320,000-acre deal, we’ve done over 200,000 acres of conservation in Montana. And this will put us at about 600,000 acres in total and there’s probably going to be more in the future.
Click here for the full interview from the Flathead Beacon.
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Comments
Would you rather just see it further logged or developed rather than conserved?
You are scoffing at the easements, which makes no sense. What would you rather?
-They keep logging the land
-They develop the land
-They conserve the land
Am I missing any other reasonable options?
You presented me with three options. I will answer to each below:
1. "They keep logging the land". They cannot because they have already cut the hell out of most everything they are selling in an unsustainable way.
2. "They develop the land". Much of what they are selling is very, very steep and undevelopable. However, some of the land is developable and I suppose it is nice to see that land "protected" but, again, it is hard to truly protect something when it has already been killed.
3. "They conserve the land". Again, they are not "conserving" anything. They have already raped the land and then they expect a pat on the back for "conservation". They will not get it from me.
As far as "creating and enforcing" those "higher standards"... you are getting into the property rights arena there and will be hard pressed to find a way to create legal obligations to manage timber in a sustainable way. The public uproar would be deafening.
You would think a company that touts themselves as "leaders in environmental forestry" might create and enforce higher standards of their own but, alas, for every "sustainable" logging job that PCT performs you can get in a helicopter and fly to the other side of the ridge where it is out of the public's sight and find 10 other jobs where it is nothing but rape and pillage. The crux of the problem with PCT is that they are a publicly traded company. Shareholders in NY do not give a crap about what happens on the dirt... only the bottom line.
By the way, let's be clear... Plum Creek is NOT conserving ANYTHING. They are SELLING their lands for profit to others who will, in turn, "conserve" what Plum Creek has decimated. They should not be given one iota of credit for anything positive out of this.
What will happen next is that the trees will grow back, and maybe to your surprise quite quickly and not in "hundreds and hundreds of years" that you alarmingly predicted.
As I believe the conservation easement allows, in a couple of hundred years these Plum Creek stands will have been entered multiple more times to reach habitat and gasp! logging production goals.
Plum Creek is doing us all a big favor. Yes, they are selling their lands for profit, (isn't that what businesses do?) and the land and it's inhabitants (bears, mice, ants, nasty wood consuming humans) will be better off.
Three cheers for Plum Creek and The Nature Conservancy!!
Nobody tells me to "simmer down" but you did say "please" after all so that is nice. However, I cannot oblige. Sorry.
It is NOT a good deal for all parties involved. It is a great deal for PCT and the "least objectionable deal" for the rest of us. You misunderstand me if you think I am suggesting this deal should NOT happen. It absolutely should. I am only pointing out that PCT does not deserve a pat on the back or any kind of kudos for this. Why don't we just call Coca-Cola and tell them "thanks" for selling so many Cokes last year? TPL and TNC, however, are doing what needs to be done and so I say "thank you" to them... sincerely.
You claim that the forests will grow back. I never suggested anything to the contrary. It is a fact, however, that when you cut down a 300-500 year old tree it will take at least another 300-500 years to grow back. Clearcutting does NOT make the most sense except maybe for lodgepole stands where they suffer from blowdown after having been selectively cut. Selective logging with an eye towards long term sustainability is what makes sense... that is unless you can get away with cutting everything down, selling what is leftover for high prices and then use the money to purchase other tracts you can milk for more cash. The dominoes will keep falling until there is nothing left but unhealthy stands of spindly pine and fir.
I'm sorry to say that you're wrong. If this is a poor deal for anyone it is PCT. They do deserve a pat on the back because there were other options available to them that would have created much more inpactive consequences. Like they said in the interview they could have sold the parcels in 40 acre allotments and made a lot more money. At $1600 an acre myself and half of Montana would be swarming to get their peice,..that's human nature.
If you note my previous post clearcutting did make the most sense economically. I didn't claim that clearcutting would produce the most bears or mushrooms or Doug-Firs or make me feel all fuzzy inside. I have actually seen some Plum Creek tracts where especially scenic 500 year old (rotten ) trees were left to increase the human postcard pricetag on the real estate market.
Selective logging did not make the most sense because Plum Creek competes in a global marketplace driven by you and me. So blame yourself, I know that I am, or blame your neighbor or that family in Ames Iowa who is thrilled to be owning their first home.
And relax....those larches will come back, but perhaps catostrophic fire will keep the stands from ever returning to 500 year old trees (if they ever were there), it's all good.
As for myself, I hold nothing against spindly pines and firs, I love all trees equally. :)
You are not looking at their big picture.
Shocking!
News flash. I was told the inventory on the ground is something like 114 acres, by a good source. If that's the case, the wood (for the future Max Baucus Good Jobs For Montana) is, at best, worth about 62.50 an acre. For which $1600 is being paid?
Deal, baby!