NORTHUMBERLAND, N.H. (AP) – New Hampshire traditionally has relied on voluntary agreements with timberland owners to protect important wildlife habitat.

That worked well when a few paper companies owned large tracts of land, but it’s gotten harder as land changes hands quickly and gets broken into smaller parcels, says state Fish and Game biologist Will Staats.

Voluntary agreements didn’t work on 642 acres in Northumberland bought by Thomas Dillon two years ago. Dillon cut a 100-acre stand of mature oak that drew black bear, pine marten – a threatened species – and other animals dependent on acorns, according to retired Fish and Game officer Doug Menzies.

The logging was legal, although Dillon and the contractor he hired were fined by the state for water quality violations.

Dillon says he offered to sell the oak stand to the state, but the state couldn’t pay.

“It wasn’t like I didn’t try to work with them,” Dillon says. “They’re used to people just giving it to them. I don’t have the luxury to afford that.”

Charles Niebling, policy director of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, says his organization tried to buy 22,500 acres in Success and 5,000 acres in Errol from Dillon to protect it from “liquidation harvesting.”

Dillon was willing to sell for what he paid, but wanted to keep logging and gravel mining rights for four years, Niebling says.

Dillon wanted more money if the deal required him to limit his timber cutting practices.

That ended negotiations.

“What would we be buying? We’d be buying a moonscape,” Niebling says.

But Niebling also says he doesn’t fault Dillon: “I wish that he had a different ethic toward the land, but that’s his business. He bought it and we don’t have any laws that limit it.”

Dillon says he didn’t think the negotiations were very serious, but if they had been, “I’m sure there’d be some middle ground we could have come to.”