By GLENN ADAMS,Associated Press Writer

AUGUSTA – About 200,000 acres near northern Maine’s Baxter State Park and along the Machias River chain’s frontage will be conserved under agreements announced Tuesday by Gov. John Baldacci and conservation groups.

The combination of the land acquisitions and easements are financed with a combination of federal, state and private funds.

The largest share of the lands, 195,000 acres, encompasses several parcels abutting or near Baxter State Park’s southern and western edges.

The purchase of development rights completes the Katahdin Forest Project, keeping the lands open to recreational activities while permitting sustainable logging that keeps paper mills in Millinocket and East Millinocket supplied with timber.

Baldacci said the Katahdin easement can be seen “as recognition that conservation and the economy can go hand-in-hand.”

“We have always seen the Katahdin Forest Project as an effort to protect both trees and jobs,” said Tom Rumpf of The Nature Conservancy, which acquired the easement in 2002 from the former paper mills’ owner, Great Northern Paper after helping to finance the struggling company.

The Nature Conservancy is now turning the easement over to the state Conservation Department, along with $500,000 to help pay for the lands’ management. The easement, valued at $24 million, is financed with $6.4 million in federal and state grants.

The other transaction completes the protection of virtually all of the frontage along the chain of rivers and lakes at the headwaters of the Machias River, an area prized by canoeists.

The four parcels encompassing 7,700 acres were purchased by the nonprofit environmental group Conservation Fund last year from International Paper Co. and held until $7 million in public and private funds could be raised.

The Machias watershed “offers some of the finest paddling in the eastern United States, and is a critical habitat of the Atlantic salmon,” Baldacci said.

The 7,700 acres “will become a key piece of the outdoor recreation economy of Washington County,” said state Conservation Commissioner Patrick McGowan.