Bringing The World Home To You

© 2024 WUNC North Carolina Public Radio
120 Friday Center Dr
Chapel Hill, NC 27517
919.445.9150 | 800.962.9862
91.5 Chapel Hill 88.9 Manteo 90.9 Rocky Mount 91.1 Welcome 91.9 Fayetteville 90.5 Buxton 94.1 Lumberton 99.9 Southern Pines 89.9 Chadbourn
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Hofmann Forest Gets A New Prospective Buyer; Lawsuit Remains In Appeals Court

Hofmann Forest
Historical State, NCSU Libraries

A new buyer has been added to the sales agreement for the 78,000-acre Hofmann Forest.

N.C. State University plans to sell two-thirds of the property to an Alabama-based sustainable timber company called Resource Management Service. The remaining third will still go to Hofmann Forest, LLC, which is owned by the Walkers, a prominent farming family in Illinois.

NC State spokesman Brad Bohlander says endowment trustees are happy to have the timber company on board.

“It enhances sustainable forestry operations over the majority of the property. It continues to allow access for NC State students and researchers,” Bohlander said.

A lawsuit to block the sale is pending a decision in the state Court of Appeals. It alleges the university should have done an environmental impact statement, and include explicit protections for forest land. A decision is expected in the coming weeks.

When Hofmann Forest, LLC had been the sole buyer, the company had circulated a prospectus telling investors it could cut down trees for cropland and also build 10,500 homes there.

Conservation scientist Ron Sutherland is a plaintiff in the lawsuit. He says shifting two-thirds ownership over to a sustainable timber company is only a marginal improvement.

Sutherland says conservative outdoorsmen and progressive environmentalists alike are backing his efforts to block the sale of the forest.  He says 19 organizations have endorsed the Save Hofmann Forest campaign, and their MoveOn.org petition has more than 10,000 signatures.

“I think what we can do is create the political pressure to, you know, either stop the sale altogether or at the very least get a forest easement in place,” said Sutherland.

But Brad Bohlander says zoning laws are already in place to protect the forest property. 

The Hofmann sale is expected to finalize in November.

Rebecca Martinez produces podcasts at WUNC. She’s been at the station since 2013, when she produced Morning Edition and reported for newscasts and radio features. Rebecca also serves on WUNC’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accountability (IDEA) Committee.
Related Stories
More Stories