Almost 11,300 acres of private property near Lincoln are now Helena and Lolo national forest lands, the result of a three-part deal involving Plum Creek Timber Company, the nonprofit Nature Conservancy and the federal government.

The Forest Service used $10 million from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund to buy the property from the Nature Conservancy, which purchased the parcels in 2004 from Plum Creek as part of the 88,000-acre Blackfoot Community Project.

"This is great news for the Blackfoot because it puts in public ownership lands that local residents wanted to see continued public access on," said Hank Goetz, the lands director for the Blackfoot Challenge, the landowner group leading the project.

U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Interior Appropriations Sub-Committee, was instrumental last year in securing the funding.

"This was a homegrown idea and is a great example of a public and private partnership and communities coming together to protect important habitat for public access, for recreationists and for hunters," Burns said. "I thank everyone involved for all of their efforts in making this a reality."

The lands in the most recent exchange include six parcels in two counties. All are mid-elevation lands considered important habitat for grizzly bears, Canada lynx, native fish and other wildlife.

The parcel farthest to the east in Lewis and Clark County is the 5,000-plus-acre Alice Creek property, which abuts the Continental Divide.

"This purchase significantly expands public land on the Divide, which is important grizzly recovery habitat. It's also important for public access for hunting and other recreational activities," said Amber Kamps, Lincoln district ranger in the Helena National Forest.

The parcels farther west -- Marcum Mountain, Tupper Lakes, Bear Creek, Ovando Mountain and Monture West -- also connect to existing national forest land and provide a link to the valley for wildlife coming down from the Scapegoat/Bob Marshall Wilderness complex. Most of these parcels are in Powell County.

The Forest Service has long hoped to acquire these parcels, but it was the widespread community support for the Blackfoot Community Project that helped garner the federal dollars for the purchase, according to Tim Love, Seeley Lake district ranger in the Lolo National Forest.

Caroline Byrd, the Conservancy's western Montana program director , said this represents the major single re-sale of lands the Conservancy purchased as part of the Blackfoot project. The price was determined based on the "rigorous federal appraisal standards of fair market value," she said.

The sale is important because it will help the Conservancy continue its conservation work in the Blackfoot, Byrd added. The Conservancy made a significant financial commitment for the initial land purchase, a risk it took on "because of the leadership of the Blackfoot Challenge and the steadfast community support for the project," she said.

To date, the Conservancy has acquired 54,106 acres of former Plum Creek lands and is in the process of re-selling them to public buyers and to private buyers with conservation agreements in accordance with the community-developed plan.

The Conservancy and the Blackfoot Challenge are continuing their public and private fundraising efforts to complete the project. The Kresge Foundation recently provided a big boost to the effort through an $850,000 challenge grant for the purchase of the 5,600-acre Blackfoot Community Conservation Area, a centerpiece of the Blackfoot Community Project.