July 22, 2021

By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media

Global investment manager New Forests has acquired 156,000 acres of forest land in the Hilt-Siskiyou Forest – a mixed conifer forest along the border of California and Oregon – from Fruit Growers Supply Company (FGS), alongside an institutional investor client. 

FGS has a long history in connection with the Hilt-Siskiyou Forest dating back to the early 20th century. As a sister organization to the Sunkist citrus growers’ cooperative, FGS originally acquired the forest to provide raw materials for citrus crate manufacturing.

As a certified B corporation operating in Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, and the U.S., New Forests has a mission to see the forest sector take its place in the transition to a sustainable future.

Toward this goal, New Forests offers high-impact strategies in sustainable forestry and its related sectors. Currently, the firm manages 1 million hectares (2.4 million acres) of investments carrying a value of $4.5 billion spread across sustainable forest plantations, areas of natural forest conservation, carbon projects, rural land, row cropping, and timber processing. 

In the U.S. market, New Forests’ investment strategy is to acquire and manage forestry assets for sustainable timber production, environmental market exposures, and conservation in order to generate higher returns compared to strictly timber-only management, to drive the mitigation of climate change, and to foster positive social impacts.

Over the next 24 months, the inventor plans to deploy at least $500 million in U.S. forests for multiple clients, and is also actively considering additional investment in the Pacific Northwest, Lake States, New England, and Appalachia.

“New Forests’ vision is to see the forestry sector play a key role in the transition to a sustainable future – providing a sustainable supply of renewable materials, removing carbon from the atmosphere, and sustaining jobs and shared prosperity in rural economies,” said Brian Shillinglaw, managing director, New Forests’ U.S. Business. “We bring this investment and stewardship mindset to our forestry investments in California and across the United States.”

This deal is part of New Forests’ wider investment activity in the Klamath River watershed. In 2011, New Forests financed and developed the first carbon project in the California regulatory carbon market in partnership with the Yurok Tribe on tribal land near the Klamath River.

Five years later in 2016, and again in 2018, New Forests acquired several forest properties in the Klamath River watershed on behalf of investors, including the Ke’pel Creek and Pine Creek forests, which New Forests enrolled in California’s climate program to conserve the assets for long-term carbon storage and growth.

More recently in April of this year, the company, together with the Yurok Tribe and the Trust for Public Land, announced a deal that returned the Ke’pel Creek, a property that is historically part of the Yurok’s ancestral territory, to the tribe.

Owned by FGS for more than a century, The Hilt Siskiyou Forest is a high-quality asset currently managed for sustainable timber production under the Sustainable Forestry Initiative certification standard.

Today’s announcement marks a significant milestone for us, both in terms of growing our assets under management in California and Oregon and with respect to the ecological significance of the area,” said Jon Loevner, director of U.S. Investments, New Forests.

“We look forward to continuing Fruit Growers Supply Company’s tradition of stewardship of this forest, including maintenance and protection of critical wildlife habitat and watersheds, alongside the sustainable harvest of certified timber.”

– Lynda Kiernan-Stone is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, as well as HighQuest Group’s Oilseed & Grain News. She can be reached at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com.