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Press Release

Date: 10/31/01

Nashville

– The Nature Conservancy of Tennessee and the Southeastern Cave Conservancy, Inc. have pooled their resources to buy an important Gray bat cave in Wayne County, Tennessee.

The Holly Creek Cave Preserve near Iron City, Tenn. will be purchased from Forest Systems, Inc. Forest Systems is a forest management company that operates and manages forestland across the United States on behalf of large institutional investors, including pension funds.

Scott Griffin, southern region manager for Forest Systems says the company oversees 350,000 acres in seven states (Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, California, Washington and Oregon) and manages each forest with an emphasis on optimizing its investment performance while practicing progressive and responsible stewardship. This includes identifying lands with unique environmental characteristics, such as the bat cave, and working with public and private conservation groups to place them under permanent protection. Forest Systems is on the web at www.forestsystems.com.

"This is an important cave to protect not only for the federally endangered Gray bat, but also for the sensitive aquatic species found there such as the rare Southern cavefish," said Heather Garland, The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) cave program coordinator. The cave will be managed primarily for scientific study and use will be limited during the summer months when the bats are in residence and minimal disturbance is critical. TNC’s financial donation was contributed by the Wallace Research Foundation based in Tucson, Arizona.

According to Mark Wolinsky, acquisitions chairperson with the Southeastern Cave Conservancy, Inc. (SCCi), TNC and SCC have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding to share resources and expertise in joint cave conservation projects across the southeast. The SCCi already protects another Gray bat cave in north Georgia with an estimated population of 10,000 federally endangered Gray bats. The SCCi currently manages sixteen cave preserves containing over 32 caves on16, 733 acres in six southeastern states. The majority of caves are on property owned by the SCCi. The remaining cave preserves are managed through property leases. You can learn more about the SCCi by visiting their web site at www.scci.org.

The Nature Conservancy is a private, international, nonprofit organization established in 1951 to preserve plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. The Conservancy owns and manages more than 1,340 preserves, the largest private system of nature sanctuaries in the world. You can visit the Conservancy on the internet at www.nature.org.