For immediate release:
Timber Company And Ducks Unlimited Sign Agreement
DU to identify wetlands for special management
MEMPHIS, TN, January 23--- This morning, Ducks Unlimited, the world?s leading wetlands conservation organization, announced a ten-year cooperative agreement with Westvaco Corporation, a forest products company with headquarters in New York City. Details of the agreement will be announced at DU headquarters in Memphis on February 7th, followed by a wildlife viewing tour on February 8th in Wickliffe, Kentucky.
Under the Cooperative Wetlands Program agreement, Ducks Unlimited will survey over one million acres of land owned by Westvaco. The purpose of this survey will be to identify wetlands that are important to waterfowl and other birds and to refine management accordingly.????Westvaco owns land for the purpose of growing and producing forest products in several states, with the majority located in: Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. In addition to owning 1.35 million acres of land, Westvaco assists 2,800 private landowners with the management of over 1.4 million acres of land through its Cooperative Forest Management program. These private landowners will have the option to participate in the survey.
?The future success of wetlands and waterfowl conservation is going to hinge on this kind of cooperation and partnership,? said Don Young, executive vice-president of Ducks Unlimited. Young pointed out that the United States has lost 52% of its wetlands and this loss is continuing today at a rate of over 100,000 acres per year. ?We need the strength of corporate partners like Westvaco to help protect these valuable ecosystems before it?s too late,? said Young, noting Westvaco?s excellent track record for conservation minded, sustainable forestry.????Young described wetlands as ?the planet?s kidneys? to illustrate their capacity to filter and store water. ?The deterioration of wetlands affects every living creature because we all rely on clean and abundant water,? he said.
Westvaco?s Bill Baughman pointed to the company?s Wildlife Management Area (WMA) near Wickliffe, Kentucky, as evidence of the benefits of partnering with Ducks Unlimited. ?The area is teeming with wildlife, including over 200 species of birds. With the aid of Ducks Unlimited and the state of Kentucky, we?re demonstrating that forest management is not only compatible with---but, beneficial to---wildlife and waterfowl management,? said Baughman, vice-president and forest resources division manager at Westvaco.
The Indian Camp (600 acres) and Town Creek (75 acres) refuges, which are managed by the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, exist within the Westvaco WMA. The projects were completed in 1995 with support from Ducks Unlimited?s matching funding program, MARSH. The donor program?Matching Aid to Restore State Habitats?provides matching funds and grants to public and private agencies and organizations within each state. Said DU biologist Dr. Scott Manley: ?We?re very excited about the work we?ve done in Kentucky. You have to remind yourself when you visit that the area is a working industrial forest, that it is home to one of the world?s leading forest products companies.?????
Every acre of land owned by Westvaco has undergone state-of- the-art, GIS based mapping and tabular data collection under Westvaco?s Forest Resources Information System (FRIS).????The system provides Westvaco managers with information on a variety of topics ranging from soil types, the age of stands, fertilizer applications, and many other factors.???? ?The FRIS system will certainly accelerate the identification of suitable habitats and allow our biological teams to evaluate large portions of land expeditiously,? said Manley.
The official announcement/photo opportunity will take place at DU headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee, at 3:00 pm on Wednesday, February 7th, 2001. A press tour of the Westvaco-DU MARSH projects in Wickliffe, Kentucky, will take place on Thursday, February 8th. For further information, contact Tildy La Farge at 901-758-3859 or via email at mlafarge@ducks.org.
With more than one million supporters, Ducks Unlimited (http://www.ducks.org) is the world?s leading wetland and waterfowl conservation group. Wetlands are nature?s most productive ecosystems, but the United States has lost more than half of its original wetlands, and continues to lose more than 100,000 wetland acres every year.???? Westvaco Corporation (http://www.westvaco.com), headquartered in New York, N.Y., is a major producer of packaging, paper and specialty chemicals for customers in more than 70 countries.
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