"Debt-for-nature" swaps are the method of the moment for well-heeled environmentalists wishing to put parts of the Third World off limits to development. If it works with debt-straitened countries, why not with similarly strapped companies? That's the reasoning behind the latest swap plan, intended to protect a 2,900-acre redwood forest in Northern California's Humboldt County.
The main player is Maxxam, a Houston conglomerate that issued junk bonds in order to purchase the lumber firm that formerly owned the forest. Among the bond buyers: the infamous Columbia Savings & Loan of Beverly Hills, which was seized by the government in January. The...
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