Big buy makes Molpus Woodlands #2 in Adirondack Park
January 17, 2015
Denton Publications
Elizabethtown — The Adirondack Park’s largest environmental organization, Adirondack Council, applauded Mississippi timberland investment and management company Molpus Woodlands for making a significant investment in the future of New York’s Adirondack Park by purchasing the 112,238-acre holdings of The Forestland Group.
The purchase was announced on Tuesday, Dec. 16. A price was not disclosed.
The purchase makes Molpus Woodlands of Philadelphia, Miss., the Adirondack Park’s second-largest private landowner at more than 273,000 acres. Molpus had owned only 30,000 acres (near Saranac Lake) until its January 2014 purchase of nearly 131,000 acres in St. Lawrence, Clinton, Franklin and Lewis counties from Rayonier.
“We are pleased to see that Molpus is making a long term investment in the Adirondack Park’s economy and will be helping to stabilize woodlands employment by keeping these lands in production,” said William C. Janeway, Executive Director of the Adirondack Council. “We urge the company to continue to manage these lands under a third-party certified sustainable management plan, such as the Forest Stewardship Council or Sustainable Forestry Initiative. We also call on state officials to assist the company in achieving this. New York taxpayers own a conservation easement on all of these lands and have stake in keeping them healthy.
“Well-managed commercial timberlands are an important part of the Adirondack Park’s economy and its ecology,” Janeway said. “Forests that are managed for timber provide plant and wildlife habitat that may not be as common on the forever wild lands of the Forest Preserve, and vice versa. Public lands and waters bring millions of visitors to the Park each year. Both public and private lands contribute to the Park’s wild beauty and its biological diversity.”
The announcement includes lands in Lewis, St. Lawrence and Franklin counties. Prior to The Forestland Group, the lands were owned by Champion International. They include lands on several northern-flowing rivers including the St. Regis and the Grasse.
Molpus’s January purchase included parcels on Middle Branch of the Oswegatchie River in Lewis County, extensive shoreline on the Carry Falls Reservoir, headwaters of the South Branch of the Grasse River, and extensive boreal lands east of Carry Falls in St. Lawrence and Franklin counties.
The Park’s largest private landowner is fellow timberland investment/management organization Lyme Timber, of Lyme, N.H., which owns 278,000 acres.
Founded in 1975, the Adirondack Council is privately funded, not-for-profit organization whose mission is to ensure the ecological integrity and wild character of New York’s six-million-acre Adirondack Park. The Council envisions an Adirondack Park comprised of core wilderness areas, surrounded by working forests and farms, and vibrant rural communities.
#The Council carries out its mission and vision through research, education, advocacy and legal action. Adirondack Council members live in all 50 United States.
