CalPERS Won’t Vote on Forest Land Swap

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System said it won’t vote to support a Maxxam Inc. shareholder proposal to preserve the world’s largest privately owned ancient redwood forest. The $108-billion pension fund will abstain from voting on a plan to ask Maxxam to swap or sell 60,000 acres in Northern California to a government agency or conservation group. Environmentalists have fought to protect the Headwaters Forest area since Houston-based Maxxam bought the land in 1986. CalPERS said it supports a separate tentative agreement Maxxam reached with U.S. and California officials to sell 5,625 acres of Headwaters forest in an accord valued at $380 million. The pending 5,625-acre accord “is in the best economic interest of Maxxam shareholders,� CalPERS executives said in a report to the investment committee. The plan, put forth by the Rose Foundation, a nonprofit environmental group based in Oakland, and which has the support of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, will be voted on at the Maxxam annual meeting Thursday.