Pete referred me to this article, which describes Wal-Mart’s involvement in a plan to put 312,000 acres of Maine forest into a permanent conservation easement. Yeah, you read that right – Wal-Mart. The easement will protect the land from development, and timber extraction will be limited to sustainable levels.

"This is one of the last intact, vast forest landscapes Down East," said Larry Selzer, president of The Conservation Fund. "You would be hard pressed to find anyone in the state of Maine who would have anything negative to say about this."

The easement, which becomes effective immediately, will be funded with money from Acres for America, a partnership program between the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and Wal-Mart. The corporation has pledged $35 million over the next decade to help protect natural resources and the environment.

The move is part of a larger program to purchase and set aside acre-for-acre as much land as is taken up by all Wal-Mart stores, parking lots, and distribution centers throughout the country (a current total of 138,000 acres). Of course, this isn't really a significant expense for Wal-Mart – the $35 million pledge represents a only about .01% of their $285 billion in net sales from FY 2004 alone.

It’s possible that the transaction simply represents a relatively cheap way for Wal-Mart to improve its environmental image just before Earth Day, but, to steal words from Pete’s mouth, “I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

Update: Probably a better figure than net sales is revenue, which was kindly sent to me by christine in nj from DailyKos - Wal-Mart's 2004 revenue was $83.02 billion, of which their $35 million pledge constitutes .04%.