What: A celebration to mark the purchase of the Needmore Tract was held last week at the Smoky Mountain Country Club in Whittier. The 4,467-acre parcel is now under the management of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. It will be managed as gamelands for hunting and other public uses.

Where: Along the Little Tennessee River in Swain and Macon counties, including 4,000 acres of contiguous habitat

The preservation of the Needmore Tract in Macon and Swain counties was helped by what Bill Ross calls one of the state’s newest and most promising conservation tools.

Ross, the secretary of the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, was in Jackson County last week to take part in a celebration to mark the preservation of the Needmore Tract along the Little Tennessee River in Macon and Swain counties. The 4,467-acre parcel is considered by many preservationists to be one of the most biologically important pieces of land to be put in protected status in several years.

The Ecosystem Enhancement Program contributed $7.5 million of the total $19.6 million to The Nature Conservancy. The EEP was established in November 2003 and uses funds already appropriated to the Department of Transportation to mitigate for the loss of streams and wetlands during highway construction.

“This is a new way of mitigating for lands harmed by road construction,” said Ross in an interview before the Needmore celebration. “It also helps make the highway permitting process more effective.”

The three-year agreement includes a contract with the Conservation Trust for North Carolina that Ross hopes will accelerate land-preservation efforts like the acquisition of the Needmore Tract. Landowners who participate in this program can sell their land outright to the state or give up development rights by placing it in a conservation easement. The easement provides tax breaks for the owner.

The Conservation Trust will rely on the expertise of 22 local and regional land trusts to identify the highest-quality sites for preservation. Ross also praised the importance of building local partnerships.

“It is crucial to have local partners, people from the region, working on these projects. The Ecosystem Enhancement Program encourages these kinds of partnerships,” said Ross.

Ross also said that collaborative preservation efforts — such as the one that led to the Needmore purchase — are absolutely necessary if the state is going to continue to save critical habitats from development.

“More and more, this is the way it is going to happen. With the budget challenges and the rapid conversion of open spaces to other uses, it is going to take a whole lot of partners to pull off efforts like this,” said Ross, referring to the Needmore purchase.

Up to 10 different organizations and individuals played a key role in the effort that led to the Needmore purchase. Many others worked in peripheral roles.

Katherine Skinner, the executive director of the N.C. Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, said the early support from the leaders in Swain and Macon counties played a key role in giving the Needmore preservation effort early momentum.

“The leaders in Macon and Swain counties really took the high road and made such a huge difference,” said Skinner. “This project would not have succeeded without them.”