OK, it is great to see that NC State and the College of Natural Resources want to keep the Hofmann Forest in the future. We hope they also will try to continue to support our legacy of 80 years of management of the Forest, not just seek the highest profits in the short run at the expense of long-term sustainability.
So now, to make this new approach really work, NC State and the Natural Resource Foundation should do what opponents of a complete sale contended all along; (1) perform an environmental analysis of the alternatives for managing or selling parts of the Hofmann Forest; (2) explicitly involve forestry, conservation, faculty, and local stakeholders in those analyses and discussions in open and transparent processes; (3) place a working forest conservation easement on all or the vast majority of the Hofmann Forest; and (4) reappoint forestry, conservation, and local interests as a majority of the of the Natural Resources Foundation Board, as its charter mandates, and as prevailed in the past before a sale was attempted. As an aside, revising the “slanted to sell” Hofmann Forest Facts webpage would be a nice gesture of good faith in reform as well. Dissing the Hofmann legacy on the web—as the most valuable gift the university owns—only destroys trust.
A sincere reformed approach to keeping the Hofmann Forest as suggested above will help advance our mission of teaching and research about sustainability and forest management and protection, increase endowment funding and contributions, and foster long-term goodwill among all stakeholders involved. Let’s do that in an open and collaborative approach!
Teach what you believe, practice what you teach: forest resource management, conservation, transparency, collaboration.
Fred Cubbage, professor, forestry, NC State