2. The Board’s singular fous on Hofmann as a “financial asset” is curious indeed for a School of
Forestry and Natural Resources. Have we abandoned all consideration of teaching, research,
and demonstration of the multiple societal benefits of conservatively managed forest land?

3. The pledge to “maintain access for students and faculty to cconduct research is an empty
promise. If you don’t control the site, your field research is NOT secure.

G. Maxwell Class of 1965

In my honest opinion, the Hofmann Forest is a hell-hole, but my time spent there has made me a better and more knowledgeable person and worker, and I am damn grateful for that experience. I am deeply sorry for the future graduates, undergraduates, and faculty who may never set foot on such a beautifully orchestrated forest in their lives.

1) Continued access to the forest will be limited and then phased out by new owners. We all know that. Access problems, safety, and liability, as well as sale of some lands and accelerated timber harvest of much of the forest to pay off the purchase debt will quickly cut out our student use and end carry over research involvement.

2) The Foundation met in secret, with only the pretense of faculty input. The meeting had no announcement, no public agenda, no public input, and no public minutes, and its members have been sworn to secrecy. The Hofmann Forest is a public asset and public trust, but the public and local community has been carefully excluded from the decision process. This is not good for anybody in the long term.

It is clear the College has strong monetary ambitions; tragic that it has no long term academic or stewardship ambitions. I doubt that we will receive more income from a broader portfolio; that is why the Hofmann Forest alone is valued at a market price of more than four times that 2012 stated assets of about $27,000,000 for all the rest of the CNR portfolio, much of which comes from prior Hofmann timber receipts as well.

3) The lack of use statement is not correct. We just provided the NR Foundation Board a summary of current research, teaching, and service activities since 2000, that was 8 pages long, single spaced, 10 point type. This was not asked for or considered in advance of the decision to sell. Nine classes on campus use data or examples from the Hofmann every year. We go down there all the time for day trips, and it is our only Coastal Plain Forest, which is the region where two-thirds of the timber in the state and the South is produced.

Seven graduate thesis are currently being conducted on the Hofmann; 15 to 30 undergraduate and graduate students do internships or research technician work on the Hofmann every year; external partners such as the North Carolina Forest Service and American Tree Farm System train there; and visitors come from all over the world to see the Hofmann.

4) This charge of poor or inefficient management is absolutely incorrect. We manage the forest well and efficiently, and are a very large commercial operation. We have no debt load—the Hofmann is carried at its adjusted cost basis of $773,411 when it was contributed to the College. We pay no income taxes and no property taxes. We make at least 20% more than any other private entity just due to our tax treatment, and provide unparalleled and irreplaceable access for teaching, research, and service.

5) The supposed superior returns for the NR Foundation have not been demonstrated by any empirical data from our NR Foundation investments. I provided empirical analyses that showed U.S. average returns on equity investments have been less than 0% per year in real terms in the 2000s, which means there would be no returns to CNR if the principal remained untouched, no matter what the sale price was. Those poor returns are why we still have more than $17,000 of “underwater” investments in the NR Foundation as of 2012, despite some stock market gains recently. Meanwhile the Hofmann provided net returns of more than $1.5 or $2 million per year back to CNR during the 2000s. Fires and hurricanes are much less frequent, and far more salvageable, than stock market crashes and fiscal cliffs.

6) Our stature is integrally linked to the Hofmann. The Hofmann Forest has provided 79 years of teaching, research, and service to students in forestry and natural resources. It is the envy of the rest of the world, as largest living working forest laboratory in existence. Its loss would be the most hypocritical example of stewardship imaginable, and permanent stain on the reputation of the College of Natural Resources and NC State University.

The forestry teaching, research, and outreach faculty oppose the sale because it will irreparably harm our stature and programs. As the NCSU web site currently promotes for other locations, the Hofmann is literally hallowed ground for professional forestry and natural resources.

Per the Land Ethic of Aldo Leopold (1948), “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

The sale of the Hofmann would be tragically, monumentally, permanently wrong, violating all the principles and ethics that we espouse as a profession, college, and university.

Fred Cubbage
Alumni Association Distinguished Research Professor, 2009-2011

JUST SO EVERYONE KNOWS< THE ENTIRE FACULTY AND STUDENT BODY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF CNR SAID DON'T SELL IT!

Thanks

The message you are sending is that you would rather have the short-term income and distance yourself from the realities of managing one of the largest privately-owned resources in the state than stay committed to teaching that sustainable natural resource management is a viable means for income.

Thomas Rudd
RF #1699
NCSU Forest Management class of 2009

John Cook
MF 1999

I hope you are doing well. I will be in the Raleigh area during the second week of December 2012. I was wondering if it might be possible to schedule a tour of the campus for my colleagues from Kosovo. Hope to hear from you.

Jane Obbagy

This does not mean that the presence of Brucella suis in feral swine will lead to a wide-spread outbreak like “swine” flu in humans. Brucella is a bacteria and requires people to come into direct contact with infected swine to become infected. So hunters, people that butcher infected feral swine, or handle meat from infected swine prior to cooking are at greatest risk. Clinical signs are rather non-specific, but once a diagnosis is made the infection can be treated with antibiotics. Also infected people do not transmit the infection to other people. The point of the article is that the range of infected feral swine is spreading in the Southeast so we want people, such as hunters, who might be exposed to be aware and practice safe handling of the swine while it is being processed for human consumption. If a person should develop a fever days to weeks after handling or processing a feral swine, then they should inform their physician so Brucella screening can be performed.