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DAN
HUBIG |
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 PETER LATOURETTE Snowy egret |
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FOR YEARS THE U.S. FISH AND Wildlife Service and conservationists
had tried to acquire Bair Island, a 1,600-acre tidal marsh next to the
Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Reserve. This highly valuable
wetland was also at the top of the acquisitions list for the Peninsula
Open Space Trust. Yet POST took no part
in the many lobbying campaigns to win protection for Bair Island, nor in
efforts to impose land use regulation. To get involved in the political
process would have compromised one of its most important assets: the trust
it enjoys among people of varied political persuasions, and its ability
to play for high stakes in the private marketplace. POST was watching for
the moment when the owner might be willing to negotiate a sale quietly
and swiftly. That moment came a year
ago. With astonishing speed--it took only four meetings--the corporate
owner agreed to sell Bair Island to POST for $15 million. This was a dazzling
accomplishment for POST, which prides itself on having helped to protect
35,000 acres in an area where a house lot goes for $500,000 or more. Few local land trusts
can play in this league. "The concept of secrecy and the competitive
edge is essential to our work," says executive director Audrey Rust.
"Our goal is the top of the pyramid. Then we bring smaller donors
along. We've spent our time cultivating people who pack a powerful punch
at the top of the pyramid." POST had been talking
with the landowner, Kumigai Gumi Co., Ltd., for several years, without
success. "We knew they wanted out," Rust said. "Almost all
their work in Redwood Shores (an adjacent development) was done, the Japanese
stock market was down the tubes and their stock with it, and Japanese companies
were pulling out of American real estate. They had bought high, the market
had dropped, and they found themselves with investments that weren't being
realized." The problem was getting
to the right people, ones whom Kumigai Gumi trusted and who could provide
the necessary introductions. "A local developer found us the right
people to talk to, so that when we were scrutinized it was through a developer--a
business vouching for another business." Rust said. "We were
introduced by an attorney who used to be partners with one of their attorneys.
In any business/nonprofit deal you have to have money, experience, and
professional knowledge, but none of these work if you don't have the contacts."
Meanwhile, the local chapters of the Audubon Society and other advocacy
groups orchestrated a campaign to persuade the landowner that his best
option was to sell Bair Island at a fair price. Kumigai Gumi is Japan's
seventh-largest construction corporation and the largest in overseas projects.
On its world map this wetland on San Francisco Bay, so precious to local
residents, would be no more than a pushpin. "We had to figure
out an aikido move so their strength would work against them," said
William L. Rukeyser, communications consultant to the Bay Area Audubon
Council at the time. Rukeyser devised a strategy.
He would work through Japanese media to make the Bair Island story news
in Tokyo and so reach the landowner. "Japanese companies, and Kumigai
in particular, don't particularly like publicity, unless they make it themselves,"
he explained. In June 1996 a photo opportunity
for Japanese media was arranged on Bair Island. Demonstrators held up huge
banners, in English and Japanese. On October 8, a full-page ad appeared
in the West Coast edition of the New York Times, which circulates
in Japan and along the Pacific rim, where Kumigai has many projects. The ad had been prepared
with the help of experts in Japanese culture, and in particular its corporate
culture. It was an open letter to Mr. Kumigai and was signed by environmental
groups both in the U.S. and Japan. It told Mr. Kumigai that he would never
be permitted to build on Bair Island and that selling the wetland at fair
market value would benefit U.S.-Japanese trade relations. "We made sure that
this was a fair business proposition, not a plea for charity," Rukeyser
said. "And that it was not a U.S.-Japan conflict but a David and Goliath
issue." A photograph of Mr. Kumigai--bought, after a long search,
from an agency in Britain--accompanied the letter, as well as a photograph
of Bair Island. The following day, Yomiuri
Shin Bun, the largest daily newspaper in Japan, ran a front page story.
Immediately after, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service received a call from
the company, and so did POST. "We did not collaborate
on [the advocates' strategy], not at all," said POST's Rust. "If
it worked, Kumigai Gumi wouldn't like the people who made it work."
By keeping out of the public debate, POST had maintained its position as
a trustworthy entity that could negotiate with the landowner without further
embarrassment to the company. Audrey Rust took the call
from the landowner's representative. "His first question was: 'Are
you on a land-based phone?'" she recalled. "As opposed to what?
I thought. Ship-to-shore radio? Of course he meant a cell phone, so I said
yes." Confidentiality was obviously important. The negotiations began.
The purchase price had to be low enough to be acceptable to the appraiser
for the Fish and Wildlife Service, for Bair Island was eventually to become
part of the reserve. "We do all the tricks negotiators do," Rust
said."It's a dance, and it has its dramatic moments. We practice in
the office, with each other. No matter what, you should literally, physically
flinch when money is mentioned. You have to remember that for everything
you give up, you get something." The deal was made. Bair
Island is safe now for wildlife and POST is engaged in still bigger campaigns.
It is working to raise $28.5 million for further conservation challenges.
--RG |
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