After years of negotiations that were completed only two minutes before the deadline of midnight Monday, federal and state officials and Pacific Lumber Co. agreed to a landmark $480 million deal that will turn the largest privately owned grove of ancient redwood trees in the world into a public preserve.
The deal, which government officials said was as significant as turning Yosemite and the Grand Canyon into national parks, will preserve about 10,000 acres of giant redwoods in Humboldt County north of San Francisco, including the majestic Headwaters Forest and two smaller groves.
The acquisition is significant because only 3 percent of the nation’s original redwoods, some of them 2,000 years old, remain unlogged, and it marks the biggest government acquisition of land in California since the creation of Redwood National Park 30 years ago.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), an architect of the agreement, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, Gov. Gray Davis and President Clinton called the deal “historic.”
But some environmental groups were unhappy, saying the accord did not do enough to protect endangered species.
Some expressed deep skepticism about what the government may have conceded to the lumber company at the last minute.
