Wal-Mart pledges to conserve habitat in United States.

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, has pledged to spend US$35 million to offset the loss of wildlife habitat under its thousands of stores, parking lots, and distribution centers across the United States. Under the new "Acres for America" program, the company has committed to conserving at least one acre (0.4 hectares) of priority wildlife habitat for every acre of land currently under its corporate "footprint"--an estimated 35,600 hectares--as well as any land used in development over the next 10 years, projected at more than 2,000 hectares a year.

According to the U.S. Department of the Interior, this is the first time a U.S. corporation has agreed to such an offset, which is projected to conserve some 56,000 hectares total nationwide. Wal-Mart is partnering with the U.S. National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, a non-profit group created by Congress in 1984, which aims to raise another $35 million in matching funds.

The Foundation will put an initial $8.8 million from the company into five major habitat protection projects: buying two large private ranches at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, expanding Louisiana's Catahoula National Wildlife Refuge, adding land for bat habitat to Sherfield Cave/Buffalo National River in Arkansas, buying a conservation easement to aid salmon and steelhead fish populations along a tributary of Oregon's Deschutes River, and protecting shoreline forests in the Downeast Lakes region of Maine.

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The Interior Department hopes the arrangement will be a model for good corporate citizenry, though others are skeptical. The Sierra Club, which has long criticized Wal-Mart's contributions to urban sprawl, worries about the company's use of "green-washing" to improve its environmental image. In 2004, Wal-Mart paid a $3.1 million fine to settle a violation of the U.S. Clean Water Act after it was cited for excessive storm water runoff at 24 construction sites in nine states.

Wal-Mart has US$285 billion in sales annually and employs 1.6 million people at more than 5,100 stores worldwide. The company has been criticized for anti-union activity and has faced lawsuits over sex discrimination, child labor, and hiring of illegal immigrants.