AUGUSTA – The largest conservation easement in America is a done deal.

Pingree Associates accepted a check for $28 million in a State House ceremony Tuesday in exchange for development rights on more than 760,000 acres the company owns in western and northern Maine.

The check came from the New England Forestry Foundation, the Massachusetts group that spent two years raising the funds to protect the forestland, at a cost of about $37 an acre.

“Today we make history with a conservation easement of unprecedented scale and magnitude,” Gov. Angus King said. “The protection of over three-quarters of a million acres shows that with the right partners landscape-scale dreams can come true.”

“Future generations owe a debt of gratitude to the Pingree family and the New England Forestry Foundation for the singular vision and determination that made this possible,” he added.

When the easement project was announced at a similar State House press conference two years ago, several reporters in attendance asked what would happen if all the money wasn’t raised. At that time, the foundation’s largest fund-raiser had netted only $1 million, and it held easements on just 4,000 acres.

On Tuesday, Pingree President Stephen Schley said failure had not been an option, although the project was unprecedented in its scope.

It took three years to negotiate the easement, which was announced in March 1999. It then took another two years to raise the money to buy the easement, which prohibits development on 762,192 acres, an area larger than Rhode Island and more than three times the size of Baxter State Park.

The easement covers about 80 percent of the land owned by Seven Island Land Co., the forestry arm of Pingree Associates.

With the Legislature and municipal officials concerned about sprawl, the historic easement is very timely, Schley said.

Still, several environmentalists have said that easements are a waste of money because timber companies, like Seven Islands, get to continue harvesting trees while collecting money for not allowing development, often in remote parts of the state.

Schley said Tuesday these critics are shortsighted.

He said his company routinely gets phone calls from people seeking camp leases on Pingree land, especially near water. He said many people have called recently asking if they can get a lease before the easement is finalized.

He said it would have been easy for the company to get subdivision approval from the Land Use Regulation Commission to divide and develop much of the land it owns. If that had happened, it would look very different 50 years from now, he said.

“People who think development pressure is not real are thinking in the short term,” Schley said.

The easement would do little to change Pingree’s operation, Schley said. The sale of development rights allows the company to focus its efforts on its forestry operations, which are the only ones in the country to be certified as well managed by both the Forest Sustainability Council, an international independent body, and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, an industry program. The forestland is now open to the public for recreational purposes and the company plans to keep it that way.

The announcement of the Pingree easement came amidst a flurry of land sales that saw nearly a quarter of the state’s forestland change hands. Shortly before the easement was announced, The Nature Conservancy announced it had bought 185,000 acres along the upper St. John River. The group raised more than $35 million in less than two years to pay for it.

The conservancy gave $1 million to the Pingree group to help cover its easement cost. The company said it would eliminate commercial forestry operations and new roads from a 17-mile stretch of St. John riverfront. In addition to the money, the conservancy swapped land with comparable timber values for the Pingree land.

Including the St. John frontage, the Pingree easement covers 2,000 miles of shore frontage along major rivers and streams. More than 110 lakes will be conserved as will 24,800 acres of deer yards and 72,000 acres of wetland habitat.

Of the money raised to buy the easement, 40 percent came from foundations, with the Maine-based Libra Foundation kicking in $1 million; 40 percent was from individuals; and 10 percent came from the federal government through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Students at the Breakwater School in Portland conducted a penny drive and raised $831.42.

Negotiations are under way on a second large easement in northern Maine. The Forest Society of Maine is currently working on one that will cover more than 650,000 acres including the headwaters of the Penobscot and St. John rivers and the north end of Moosehead Lake.

That project has been heavily criticized by some environmentalists because public money – $14.35 million in federal funds and $1 million in state money – have already been committed to the project although the terms of the easement have yet to be finalized.