The Redwood Forest Foundation is using $65 million in flexible long-term financing from Bank of America to purchase 50,000 acres of working timberland in the Usal Redwood Forest from Hawthorne Timber Company. It’s the country’s first forest acquisition by a nonprofit using 100 percent private capital to close the deal, according to BofA.

“Some of the trees we are protecting were saplings before Bank of America was founded in San Francisco in 1904,” said Kenneth D. Lewis, Bank of America chairman and CEO. “This is one of the most significant transactions of our recently announced $20 billion environmental initiative.”

“We anticipate that this project will be the first of many in which the global capital markets will be tapped to finance projects more traditionally considered the domain of the public sector,” said Don Kemp, RFFI’s Executive Director.