Epic Games chief pays $15M to protect 7,000 acres of North Carolina wilderness

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/285149/Epic_Games_chief_pays_15M_to_protect_7000_acres_of_North_Carolina_wilderness.php

by mutor • 10 years ago

845 168 10 years ago

gamasutra.com

knowaveragejoe2• 10 years ago

Hopefully we see similar efforts from others. The incoming president has stated he plans to gut the EPA and potentially even divvy up some state/national parks for development. Private donors will have to win out over commercial interests, as far as conservation is concerned.

_delirium• 10 years ago

One option for people with some money to spare, but not enough to personally buy thousands of acres, is to donate to a conservation land trust, which pools money to buy up land and preserve it. These are usually local or state/regional organizations, such as the Texas Land Conservancy [1] or the John Muir Land Trust [2]. There's a directory of them here: http://findalandtrust.org/

[1] http://www.texaslandconservancy.org/

[2] http://www.jmlt.org/

jrobn• 10 years ago

Maybe also think about donating to http://earthjustice.org. They are a non profit that fights cases in court to protect wild spaces, destructive legislation, and corporate rape of public lands.

justin66• 10 years ago

There's a lot of this going on in some places. It's useful for people who already own a lot of land but don't want to pay property taxes on it. Agree not to drill for oil or cut down timber in your enormous back yard and get a huge tax discount...

ethbro4• 10 years ago

Isn't the purpose of a land tax to encourage the most productive use of land? So if we value wilderness, then a tax break seems like the correct way to facilitate that.

mikeyouse2• 10 years ago

You're not joking..

The guy who's in charge of Trump's EPA transition thinks that climate change is a hoax, that the Clean Power Plan is illegal, that the Endangered Species Act should be repealed, that the Paris Climate Agreement is unconstitutional.

The likely pick to head the DOE is a lobbyist for the oil industry who wants to open up Federal lands for energy exploration.

Good lord this election is going to have far-reaching consequences.

knowaveragejoe2• 10 years ago

My understanding is that there are other options he could go with, but it is indeed alarming that the seeming "top pick" would be this guy of all people. It's a shame.

losteric3• 10 years ago

It's not just Trump, the entire government is seeing red. The Republicans have control of the House, Senate, Presidency, and they will take control of the Judicial branch as well. It's a conservative wet dream.

In four years, we'll either have a 1-party system or an N-party system.

dv_dt3• 10 years ago

Not that Trump's gov't doesn't need watching, but I'd note that Clinton's pick for her transition team was a lobbyist for the oil industry. The root failure wasn't in the general election it was during the primaries.

NumberCruncher4• 10 years ago

I am sorry for you guys and girls from the US of A. You seem to be really traumatized by the result of the election. But keep calm: the fact that the majority (OK, a small minority) of the land of the free voted on the wrong/right mascot won't change the outcome of the game. Or do you really think that the people sitting on billions of dollars would risk loosing their power because of your vote? They didn't get there where they are because of paying attention to your opinion but because of ignoringt it. So relax, everything will be OK. Or not. But not because of Trump.

hkmurakami• 10 years ago

I've always wondered when development pressures will reclaim the open space and nature preserves we have in the Bay Area.

Perhaps this is it.

hx872• 10 years ago

Depends on how strong vertical NIMBY is compared to horizontal NIMBY. I hope the latter is stronger.

wnevets• 10 years ago

hillary had those emails tho, so its ok.

AnOscelot• 10 years ago

One organization I support is the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance[1]. For those of you that care about the redrock desert, please look into them. They were very effective in the Bush years and I'm hoping they will be again.

[1] suwa.org

jyriand• 10 years ago

There's a great documentary "You've been trumped" about Trump's great ambition to build a golf course to Scotland. This is a nice example what the future president thinks about nature and wilderness. Full doc seems to be available in youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCfaYlRyTGA

odbol_3• 10 years ago

Be prepared for Trump Towers in every National Forest. It's going to be YUUUUGE.

Shivetya• 10 years ago

Well if they do sell some of it then its an idea time for those who can and want to protect the environment long term step forward.

People need to see it as an opportunity and then take it.

johansch5• 10 years ago

Quite a leap from building Jill of the Jungle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4IArecoE_c).

johansch5• 10 years ago

I know this is futzy to ask.. but why downvote this to 0? I think Tim is brilliant.

joakleaf• 10 years ago

Jill of the Jungle was one of those shareware games where the technology (and graphics) was not great, but the gameplay was!

It came after id software had developed smooth scrolling games (albeit only in EGA) and the scrolling in Jill just felt pretty bad. Smooth scrolling was certainly possible in 256 color VGA, and they could also have used mode X to perform fast blits (4 pixel moves). They didn't use the smooth scrolling registers, and it didn't seem like they used mode X - at least the game did not feel like it.

However, I think, keeping the scrolling implementation simple, enabled them to focus on gameplay and sound on the Sound Blaster -- a relatively cool and unique thing at the time! Thus a classic example of not getting distracted by the tech side of things, but focusing on user experience.

I dazzled quite a bit with side scrollers then, and it took me a long time to uncover the possible ways to use the VGA hardware on the 286 and 386 for scrolling -- It was really hard to find information about the VGA hardware registers around 1990/1. By the time I had it nailed, the 486DX was already common and fast enough that everything could be done trivially on the CPU. Thus everything I had struggled to learn about smooth scrolling on the VGA hardware became obsolete. That was how I learned, not to spend too much time trying to optimize (prematurely) for current hardware!

johansch5• 10 years ago

I dazzled quite a bit with side scrollers then, and it took me a long time to uncover the possible ways to use the VGA hardware on the 286 and 386 for scrolling -- It was really hard to find information about the VGA hardware registers around 1990/1. By the time I had it nailed, the 486DX was already common and fast enough that everything could be done trivially on the CPU. Thus everything I had struggled to learn about smooth scrolling on the VGA hardware became obsolete. That was how I learned, not to spend too much time trying to optimize (prematurely) for current hardware!

I did the same, but with the 486 in 1993! And I wasn't connected at all, no BBS:es, just sharing copies of copies of copies of floppies (etc etc). It's hard to imagine the dearth of information nowadays, and how valuable every scrap of information was. Now and then you'd get across this goldmine of information (in the form of some source code), and spend weeks/months understanding it all.

I spent so much time experimenting with Turbo Pascal, inline assembly and VGA mode 13h and mode X. And trying to build the ultimate sprite and tile engine...

The good thing about not being connected though: it was easy to stay concentrated on one issue at a time.

mzw_mzw2• 10 years ago

What's wrong with building that?

johansch5• 10 years ago

I guess my non-native command of Americanese shows again.

What I was trying to say:

"Wow, it's so awesome that someone who started out with a little self-developed PC game in the early 90s got so rich that he could afford this."

Just a reflection: people are really downvote-happy on this site - in the case when something perhaps, conceivably could be perceived as being negative. I think this is a bad thing. I find my self guarding statements, sprinkling in superfluous positive statements ("And I like X").

I think the unofficial (?) "be positive" motto has gone full circle in this regard and is now being used to downvote neutral statements.

skandl• 10 years ago

This is a great review! He's so enthusiastic and appreciates so much about the game. Cool :)

johansch5• 10 years ago

That Youtube channel (Lazy Game Reviews) is generally speaking quite good. Recommended.

M_Grey3• 10 years ago

This is the kind of action that can have long-term positive impacts. Maybe it won't change the world, and it won't get you Zuckerberg "I'm ending all disease" press, but it's immediately, tangibly beneficial to masses of life. I respect the hell out of this.

douche2• 10 years ago

Fantastic, great work Tim Sweeny.

One note of caution, is that sometimes when private individuals buy up these big chunks of land from the government or big land-management organizations, they restrict access and traditional activities on that land in ways that mightily piss off the locals. It's a not uncommon point of contention in the north woods of Maine where I grew up; IP or Meade or Plumb Creek tends to be pretty lax about hunting, fishing, snowmobiling, etc, as long as their lumber is left alone and the roads aren't ripped up. Millionaires from away have a tendency to lock it down and post everything, in a modern-day form of enclosure.

david-given• 10 years ago

I come from Scotland, and that's one of the weirdest things to get used to in other countries: that someone can just fence off a patch of wilderness, say 'that's mine' and stop anyone from going in. It feels oddly alien; I can't think of a worse way to teach respect for the countryside. If it's land that's being used for something, that's one thing. Generic wilderness? That just seems wrong.

(Scotland doesn't have trespass is the same sense that other countries have. The legal system is quite different from English law, which I believe (vaguely) is what the US system was based on.)

branchless3• 10 years ago

I love this part in Guthrie's "This land is your land":

As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there And that sign said - no tress passin' But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin! Now that side was made for you and me!

alistairSH3• 10 years ago

Scottish-American here, and every time I visit family, I wonder how we got it so wrong over here in the US.

And it's not just millionaires and wilderness. Anecdote: A friend lives in Oklahoma, on a few wooded acres. One day, he posts a photo on Facebook of some guys riding horses across the corner of his property. He didn't care (no reason to), but the first response, "Why were they there? Did you go after them?" Makes no sense.

alistairSH3• 10 years ago

For those interested, here's a quick overview... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reform_in_Scotland

tl;dr - The Land Reform Act 2003 codified the long-held tradition of unhindered access to open country. This includes the great estates, forestry land, etc. Basically, as long as you behave, you can hike, camp, cycle anywhere you like. Obvious exclusions would be somebody's yard adjacent to their home, areas with active livestock activity, etc.

perfmode• 10 years ago

Of course it changes the world.

ronilan• 10 years ago

More accurately, prevents changing the world.

mc32• 10 years ago

Physically yes, but it changes attitudes towards how we view our environment and that's refreshing coming from a corp.

webkike• 10 years ago

Or more pedantically, allow a part of the world to keep changing the same way for longer

M_Grey3• 10 years ago

So does pissing in the ocean, technically, but I hope you still understood what I meant. This scale of action won't alter the course of world affairs in an appreciable way, and yet is still demonstrably positive.

nikatwork• 10 years ago

I hope you still understood what I meant

It wouldn't be HN without autistically pedantic nits on scope and definition that add nothing of value to the discourse.

dang• 10 years ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12913658 and marked it off-topic.

WalterBright• 10 years ago

Buying land and making nature preserves out of it is an excellent and effective way for wealthy people to do good.

jonknee• 10 years ago

That's what turned me into a fan of Ted Turner:

http://www.tedturner.com/turner-ranches/

cpeterso• 10 years ago

The Nature Conservancy does something similar:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_Conservancy

branchless3• 10 years ago

In our current system, yes, but should we not reach higher to say that this land is common land and that it is a resource not just for us but for all generations going forward.

When we say that all land is for sale and once owned is at the disposal of the owner in perpetuity, we rely on the good-will of the owner. In the majority of cases this is not enough.

We need to look at land ownership differently if we want to achieve real change. We have to bake in behaviour into the rules of our society. Right now we bake in land speculation and exploitation of natural resources for private good and often the public purse picks up the pollution costs later.

jonlucc• 10 years ago

I think it's worse than that. This particular person is in a position to likely make enough money to not need to worry about the cost of management of this land. What if his kids aren't as rich or don't care as much about nature? What if he has 6 kids and they split the land equally; will 5 generations down the line still feel attached to their distant relatives to be able to hold the land together?

deepnotderp2• 10 years ago

With the trump presidency coming up, we'll need more people like this. Even the common people can do so, try dominating to some organizations.

treehau5• 10 years ago

Less government regulatation, government doing less and citizens doing more? Sounds like a political ideology I've heard of before...name is slipping me right now.

formula12• 10 years ago

This made me smile. Threat of big bad gov in a free market certainly gives incentive for people to give back

Retra• 10 years ago

Is it that one that never works because it is completely fragile, unenforceable, and prone to divide-and-conquer over-runs by corporate interests?

drzaiusapelord• 10 years ago

I'm sorry but there's no way a well-off geek is going to off-set what Trump's EPA is capable of doing. The proposed interim chief is a global warming denier with dreams of privatizing our national and state parks for development and has issues with the Endangered Species Act and other "big government" regulations.

This reminds of previous elections when the GOP candidate would talk about gutting social programs and protections and that private donors and churches and such will take up the slack. Its fairly unrealistic for even large amounts of private wealth to make up for federal cuts. The EPA and DOI collectively have a near $30bn budget. If Bill Gates liquidized all his wealth and donated it, it wouldn't even pay for three years of their budget. Practical plans to keep animals from going extinct require non-stop work, sometimes for decades. I doubt we'd have bald eagles today if Reagan tried to privatize these agencies, gave away their lands, or removed their regulatory powers.

komali2• 10 years ago

In the worst case, the citizens can simply deny attempts to, for example, develop on a national park by sitting on the park. See: the pipeline protests from the last 2 months.

Yes, it shouldn't come to that. Yes, that means abandoning jobs, income, etc and hanging out in a field for god knows how long. But, well, things aren't hopeless.

I made myself depressed writing that comment.

lukego• 10 years ago

Just randomly: one of my great internet regrets is flaming Tim Sweeney about boring type system wars on "Lambda: The Ultimate" without realizing what an impressive fellow he is :).

ethbro4• 10 years ago

I made a joke about Walter Bright's (of so many famous things) username without knowing who it was. That was a distinct "Wow, I feel like an asshole" day. So it happens to all of us, I guess; take your lumps and keep on trying to be awesome.

spullara• 10 years ago

This is become a popular way to avoid paying income taxes. This year it moved from being able to offset 30% of income to 50% of income. It can be 100% of income if you are a farmer.

maxxxxx3• 10 years ago

I am a little cynical maybe but I wouldn't be surprised if they built a luxury resort next to it and only wealthy clients can access it. I would be more positive if it were run like a national park accessible to all.

zokier2• 10 years ago

if they built a luxury resort next to it and only wealthy clients can access it.

Would that be such a bad thing though? Seems like lot better than not having protected land at all.

maxxxxx3• 10 years ago

It's a problem in the sense that more and more area is accessible only to rich people. There is a good reason that ocean beaches in the US are accessible to everyone.

bouncingsoul• 10 years ago

“It’s still in private ownership but the easement ensures it can never be developed,” Sweeney said. “It’s not open to anyone in the public at any time, but people can email and get a permission card and go and enjoy it.”

http://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2016/11/08/box...

maxxxxx3• 10 years ago

Who controls the permissions? If it was a lottery where everybody can participate i am fine.

tomovo• 10 years ago

I try to help whenever I can... http://www.laphroaig.com/default.aspx?ReturnURL=/friends/reg...

fiatjaf• 10 years ago

This is stupid. He should have bought the area and protected it himself. This donation will be used to finance wars and hire government employees that will stand in their desks the whole day waiting for someone to bribe them, not a single penny will be used to protect land or animals. Never give your money to the government, it doesn't matter what are you thinking, it is never a good idea.

jstelly• 10 years ago

The article links to a more accurate piece. He did buy the property for $15M. He then created an easement preventing development and donated that easement to US Fish & wildlife.

He has also bought other property for the same purpose.

He created this easement partially because a developer sued to use eminent domain to force him to allow them to construct a power line across the property.

http://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2016/11/08/box...

RayVR3• 10 years ago

This is a tax scheme to offset massive amounts of income. I have looked at many of these deals. You can generally get multiples of 3-10x the value based on the government discount tables.

Congrats to him for playing it this way.

formula12• 10 years ago

Please provide a source(s). I appreciate this kind of knowledge because I have little faith in american upperclasses approach to good will. But unless I see proof, I dont want to feel like ab angry fool

11235813212• 10 years ago

You don't need to either way. Our government provides this large tax break incentive intentionally because it is good for the earth.

RayVR3• 10 years ago

Shouldn't really have to go to google for you but here's the first link: http://www.landtrustalliance.org/topics/taxes/income-tax-inc...

And by the way, Trump uses these deals extensively. When he builds a golf course he'll donate the right to build condos on ~30% of the property to avoid taxes.

alanz1223• 10 years ago

Had it been musk though, oh you people would have sacrificed a small child in his name. I applaud this guy, doing more than most of the people that claim to be saviours or at least perceived that way.

divyekapoor• 10 years ago

A conservation easement is not a payment. Sweeney didn't actually pay $15 million. He just gave up the right to develop on a piece of land he wasn't ever going to develop on anyway. This gives him a $15 million tax deduction over several years that he can use to offset his tax liabilities. Since he donated $15 million worth of property rights, he probably has a lot of them.

Not very different from Trump's conservation easement donation in New York.

iamcreasy• 10 years ago

What is your source?

The article explicitly says 'Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney has reportedly paid $15 million to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to permanently protect 7,000 acres of undeveloped land'.

notlisted• 10 years ago

I guess it works like this - http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trumps-land-donations-put...

refurb2• 10 years ago

Sweeney didn't actually pay $15 million. He just gave up the right to develop on a piece of land he wasn't ever going to develop on anyway.

That's an odd way to look at it.

Let's say I donate a car that's worth $10,000. I never plan on driving it again. Does that mean it's not worth $10,000?

touristtam• 10 years ago

That s the whole issue with market economie: everything has potentially a price tag.

austinl• 10 years ago

Reminds me of Douglas Tompkins (the founder of Esprit and The North Face) who has done this on a much larger scale in Chile and Argentina.

He's used his profit from selling his share in both companies to buy over 2 million acres of land, and is in the process of restoring the it to original conditions (which is sometimes at odds with the interest of local ranchers).

Check out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Tompkins

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/09/the-entr...

ivm• 10 years ago

He also successfully fought against greedy politicians and businessmen who wanted to build huge dams in Patagonia and flood an enormous area.

I think it is one of the reasons why Chile is turning towards solar now.

boulos• 10 years ago

Sadly, after his death it's unclear what will happen. His widow and the foundation have stated that they're likely to return the land to Chile (it has been controversial that it was privately held) and hope that the government will treat it with the same care.

deepnotderp2• 10 years ago

Just bought some stuff from Epic games after reading this, keep it up :)

Pica_soO• 10 years ago

Awesome, wish we had more of this kind of silent heroes, investing into biodiversity and keeping a little bit of nature save from the worst animal on the planet.

photonwins• 10 years ago

You don't have to be rich to do this.

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/short-film-showcas...

eadlam• 10 years ago

Is there anything like Kickstarter where citizens can pool their money to buy up land for conservation?

douche2• 10 years ago

In Quebec, there are a huge number of Zec's[1]. Basically non-profit, co-op hunting and fishing clubs. Quebec does have the advantage that there is a huge amount of mostly empty Crown land, but they are pretty common in the denser section south of the St. Lawrence as well.

[1] http://www.perc.org/blog/what-world-zec

ignoramceisblis• 10 years ago

From elsewhere in the comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12913462

qwertyuiop924• 10 years ago

Is it a tax dodge? Yes.

But it's a really cool tax dodge.

oliyoung• 10 years ago

it's not a dodge, it's exactly the reason these deductions exist, to encourage philanthropy and charity

tn13• 10 years ago

A lot of billionaires are doing this. I am no billionaire but I purchased a small hunting grounds in Arizona few years back.

h4nkoslo• 10 years ago

I'm always curious about the model fans of this approach are using. What is the "correct" amount of conserved land? Given that the government essentially never reverses these kinds of easements or grants, you have to be extremely confident of future possible uses of the land to say that deeding it in perpetuity is a good idea.

The HN crowd tends to realize that a policy of "never build anything ever again" is a bad idea in SF, but is a great idea as long as the area in question is mostly trees not in their backyard.

daveheq• 10 years ago

Yay! Thank you human CEO being.

mcs_• 10 years ago

Pay to build

Pay to not build

gild• 10 years ago

All right, I'll play devil's advocate.

What happens a couple of centuries from now, when the Eastern Seaboard is overpopulated and we have 40,000 acres of land being held in limbo by the Sweeney Foundation?

Having this land being preserved in its natural splendor for future generations to enjoy is a worthy and noble goal, but what happens when we need housing more than we need forests?

Granted, I know this is only a small portion of the land in North Carolina (62.5 sq. mi / ~53,800 sq. mi or roughly 0.12%), but if 2-3 billionaires every generation pay to keep land pristine and untouchable forever, it'll add up over the centuries.

Just something to think about.

totalZero4• 10 years ago

1. By an extension of your logic, NYC should bulldoze Central Park and replace it with massive housing developments to meet overwhelming rental demand in Manhattan.

2. You're not going to solve overpopulation, which is the result of a growth trend, by adding a constant amount of land to the equation. If you capitulate and give up the forest, then eventually you're left with overpopulation and no forests.

3. The literal answer to your question would be to develop elsewhere in the world, or in space.

4 We need forests too, for our health and sanity.

Buge• 10 years ago

Overpopulation is ending. Fertility rates are declining and are almost below replacement rate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate

coldnebo• 10 years ago

Are you saying the process that creates risk is ending or that we are simply hitting a boundary condition (i.e. The edge of the Petri dish)?

TFR is synthetic based on population behavior (I.e. Not solely intrinsic, such as genetic).

My point is that there is a feedback-loop at work here. Educated women self-select against reproduction because the consequences are more obvious. But under-educated women still have high TFR-- they will need to hit hard boundaries (starvation, dieback).

I don't think the process of overpopulation is ending, just clamped.

soundwave106• 10 years ago

All the pictures of the Box Creek Wilderness (and the Google map of Union Mills) make it seem like it is a poor candidate for housing. The map of the wilderness looks very mountainous (it's very close to the Blue Ridge Mountains) and the Google Maps seems to show any human development, protected wilderness area or not, mostly limited to the rivers and valleys. So that will not be a concern in my opinion for a long time if ever.

From the notes in this article, (http://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2016/11/08/box...) I get the impression that Sweeney bought the land a fair bit of time ago (perhaps when the real estate bubble burst as indicated in the article). The inspiration for this recent protection came from an eminent domain issue a couple years back where a power company wanted to run a power transmission line through his property.

There's more information about this here as well (http://mountainx.com/news/community-news/rutherford_electric...).

It would be interesting to get a more local perspective; my first impression though is its not completely walled off from the public (guided hikes and a 10K trail run are mentioned). As long as local opinion is relatively in favor of keeping things unspoiled I see this as a positive.

TJTorola• 10 years ago

Here is a rough idea of what 7,000 acres looks like. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2t4y1KUdvnlbUV1aW9CdHR1dF...

kayoone• 10 years ago

Maybe its the same reason as Sam Altman has for owning a remote patch of land so that in case of things going really bad, he can fly there because he has all the important stuff (water, food, antibiotics, gold etc) stored there.

fb03• 10 years ago

Can't expect less from the legend that created the programmable roguelike system ZZT.

Long live to you, Tim!

jamesblonde• 10 years ago

This is nice, but really it's pissing in the ocean, as somebody said. In Sweden, we have "the right to roam". The idea is that all land is accessible by anyone. Any citizen can walk on any private property, subject to not damaging it or coming to close to an abode. You have rights but also responsibilities. There's none of this nonsense of breaking your leg on somebody's property and then suing them (as is done in Ireland, where private property is king).

pashapiro• 10 years ago

I've found that undeveloped land in low-demand, rural areas tends to go for about $2,000/acre. It jumped out at me in the headline that the donation was about the same rate.

Epic Games chief pays $15M to protect 7,000 acres of North Carolina wilderness

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