A year and a half after the state and land managers for 656,000 acres of forestland just north of Moosehead Lake began negotiations for public easements there, a memo from the Attorney General’s Office provides a sense of just how complicated the deal is – and how important it is to Maine.

In its first phase, the West Branch Project would result in the purchase of 12 miles of shoreline around Moosehead and develop an easement for development, public access and forestry standards for 67,520 acres of working forest. Negotiators intend to then apply the easement to nearly 600,000 acres in the second phase, making the project of historic significance for guaranteeing public access and making it extremely important to get the easement right in the first phase so that it will provide good value to the public both there and in the massive second phase now and long into the future.

Easements – purchasing certain rights on a parcel of land rather than the entire parcel – have been around for a long time, but became popular as a way to conserve land about 30 years ago. In Maine, they have spread from small tracts along the coast and islands, particularly around Acadia, west to much larger areas, notably the 760,000-acre privately purchased development easement early this year on timberland owned by the Pingree family.

Along the way, negotiators have learned quite a bit about what easements can and cannot do. For instance, easements are cost-effective ways to continue logging while protecting ecologically unique or important sites within a property. They work well for limiting development and providing recreational opportunities. But according to the Northern Forest Alliance, a coalition of 40 environmental groups in the Northeast, easements are not particularly well suited to protecting the broad habitat of a single species of wildlife; outright purchase may be more appropriate then. Other cautions might include taking care when the state asserts the public’s interest in recreation. It should be balanced against the idea that more recreation can create more ongoing maintenance costs, some of which would be the state’s responsibility. And while the state would want to ensure easement forestry standards are tougher than what is currently in statute, it would not want them so specific that they lock the state out of a chance to make even greater improvements in decades to come.

There’s nothing easy about the negotiations except the recognition that easements are a valuable way to support working forests and ensure public access for hiking, fishing, hunting and other forms of recreation. That’s why the AG’s memo was an important, positive sign that the state was taking its responsibility very seriously and raising issues now, while the easement was in its draft form, rather than waiting for criticisms after the document was signed. For instance, the memo raises legitimate questions about provisions affecting public access under liability protections, it urged the state to become more involved in determining when a “significant disturbance” allowed for the removal of timber beyond easement restrictions, it suggests that the landowners have too much say over road usage.

None of these are deal killers, and, in fact, the AG’s memo begins with the observation that none of the comments it contains are “intended to suggest changes in these basic, underlying principles of and policies of the contemplated transaction.” They are points to be negotiated, with the price of the deal shifting accordingly. Done well – and the memo indicates some important improvements – the West Branch Project could be the public model for other large easements in the years to come.