In its ongoing efforts to become more "green," Apple is partnering with a conservation group to protect thousands of acres of U.S. working forests, most of it in Aroostook County, Maine.
The tech company says it's partnering with The Conservation Fund to help conserve 32,400 acres on the Mattawamkeag River known as the Reed Forest.
The Reed Forest supports a variety of wildlife, including Atlantic salmon, bald eagles, northern goshawk and Canada lynx. It's also a forest that's harvested for timber used for construction for making paper and other materials. The initiative will maintain Reed as a working forest.
Under the agreement, conservation easements will be placed on the land that are intended to ensure sustainable harvests and restrict development. The land can only be sold with the conservation easements intact, and sale proceeds will go to protecting other forest habitats, officials say.
Apple officials say the Maine project builds on conserved land and interconnected forest habitat that totals more than a million acres and stretches into New Brunswick, Canada.
Apple is also partnering with The Conservation Fund to conserve 3,600 acres of pine and hardwood forest in Brunswick County, North Carolina.