Sequoyah Woods Campaign Targets Business Community
by June 9, 2003 12:00 am 77 views
Letters seeking financial support from business leaders for one group’s campaign to preserve the Mount Sequoyah Woods were set to be mailed June 9. The nonprofit Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association Inc. has already raised $66,000 or 22 percent of the $300,000 it needs to purchase a conservation easement for the 69-acre tract.
Dr. Pete Heinzelmann, a orthopedic surgeon and president of FNHA, said the 300-member group is now reaching out to the business community to preserves what he called “natural assets.”
The city is buying the urban forest for $1.3 million from the Mount Sequoyah Assembly Board of Trustees, which manages the assets of the United Methodist Conference and Retreat Center. But a permanent easement is needed from the city to ensure that future administrations can’t sell or develop the property.
“This forest is an original that you can’t get anywhere else,” Heinzelmann said. “It’s a Van Gogh painting compared to reprints. The first thing that impresses people when they come here is the natural beauty of the area. These woods enhance the value of the properties that surround them and should be viewed as infrastructure.”
Heinzelmann said the campaign is a unique model for a citizen-based group to work hand-and-and with the city. The land, he said, is also an incredible research asset for high school and university science classes.
The FNHA has a Web site at www.fayettevillenatural.org.