Dr. Seuss probably wasn't thinking about lawyers when he wrote about a Lorax who says, "I speak for the trees."
But with the help of lawyers from The Nature Conservancy and Horne & Horne in Dahlonega, the trees on a 469-acre tract of land in Dawson County worth roughly $5 million have been preserved.
The sliver of land, which had long been held by a variety of timber companies, divided two segments of the much-larger Dawson Forest Wildlife Management Area in north Georgia, which is conservation land known for its hiking trails, its bird watching—and its chestnut oaks, sycamores, maple and sourwood trees.
The state of Georgia had long been eyeing that land as a means of linking the two conservation areas, and the joinder finally happened.
The lawyers worked opposite sides of a land deal that helped the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the Georgia Land Conservation Program, represented by Horne & Horne attorneys Joy L. Edelberg and K. C. Horne, who'd been hired as special assistant attorneys general, buy the property at a deep discount.
"This tract, it was just a perfect fit to connect the wildlife management area," said Edelberg. Together, the three tracts of land protect more than 15,000 acres.
The Nature Conservancy sold the property to the state for $3.2 million, representing a $2.15 million discount from what the land was worth.
The Nature Conservancy, represented in this deal by in-house counsel Joan T. Dwoskin, had in 2008 purchased the land at a reduced price from Forestar Group Inc., then held it until the state could raise the money to pay for it.
Dwoskin said that The Nature Conservancy often purchases land and holds it while public entities line up their funding. Her group has the ability to take internal loans, which enables them to move faster than the state to close a DEAL. That original purchase, she said, was very difficult from an economic standpoint.
"The bottom was dropping out of the real estate market. The seller didn't really know what it was worth, and we really didn't know what it was worth. It felt more scary than usual because we didn't know what was happening," she said.
As is typical for The Nature Conservancy in these types of deals, she said, her group bought the land knowing the state wanted it but without any real guarantee that the deal would ultimately go through. "We typically close on a very loose—nerve-wracking, as a lawyer—letter of intent," she said, explaining that public entities generally cannot sign a binding contract agreeing to purchase the land from The Nature Conservancy at some future point in time because the deals close so quickly. But, she said, The Nature Conservancy has long-term relationships with Georgia and other states which allow it to make such trust-based agreements with confidence.
When it came time to sell the land to the state in this deal, she said, "At the last minute, some of the funding sources fell through. It was pretty stressful."
But—along with The Nature Conservancy's willingness to sell the land at a discount—enough funding came through from public and private sources to make the deal happen. Those sources include the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, the R. Howard Dobbs Jr. Foundation, the Mountain Conservation Trust of Georgia, the Lyndhurst Foundation, Trout Unlimited, the Department of Natural Resources, the Georgia Land Conservation Program and anonymous private donors.
Dwoskin said conserving the land was important to The Nature Conservancy and the state because it includes 2 miles of the Amicalola Creek and its tributaries—a vital segment, according to information from the state—that supports at least 27 native fish species, three of which are endangered.
Even the original seller—Forestar, which is associated with a large timber company—recognized the land's conservation significance, Dwoskin said, and "treated it pretty carefully over the years."
Edelberg said she visited an access point in the 469-acre tract to see if there were any easement issues. "It was basically just a big timber tract. I'm sure it had been harvested over time, but it's not a clear-cut tract," she said, explaining that trees now abound. "It's pretty land."