AMHERST — A New Hampshire timber company has closed on a massive land buy of nearly 2,400 acres in seven communities in Hampshire and Franklin counties, acquiring five parcels for more than $20 million from Amherst-based W.D. Cowls Inc.

Including 1,050 acres in Belchertown and 944 acres in Pelham, considered among the largest unprotected contiguous forested tracts in Massachusetts, the properties were acquired by The Lyme Timber Co. and supplements more than 5,500 acres of W.D. Cowls woodland in Leverett, Shutesbury, Pelham and Amherst conserved as working forests in 2011 and 2020.

“I’m proud of all we’ve done to fight climate change, conserving a third of our timberland, maintaining working forests and hosting adjacent large-scale solar farms,” Cowls President Cinda Jones said in a statement.

Lyme is working with the Kestrel Land Trust and The Trustees of Reservations to keep the properties open to the public for recreational use and to permanently protect the land from development for wildlife habitat, climate resiliency and water quality benefits.

Peter Stein, a managing director for Lyme, said the company, which acquires land with investment capital, has previously worked with partners to protect hundreds of thousands of acres of land in New England.

“All these newly acquired properties are adjacent to other permanently protected conservation land and are critical to maintaining connectivity to benefit wildlife habitat and water quality in the Connecticut River Valley,” Stein said. “We greatly appreciate the initiative that W.D. Cowls has taken to conserve these and other important tracts of forestland over the last 15 years.”

Stein said the properties are not expected to be actively harvested, though there will be requisite forest management activities to remain in compliance with the tax status associated with being in the state’s Chapter 61 program.

Lyme, founded in 1976, focuses on forest-related investments in both the United States and Canada, with a portfolio that includes about 1.3 million acres of third-party-certified working forests in New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other states. Lyme has also conserved over 800,000 acres of working forest in the past 20 years and developed business lines in forest management services, wetland mitigation banking and carbon sequestration.

Jones explained that when presented with new development opportunities in 2024, she called Kestrel Executive Director Kristin DeBoer to discuss options. That led to the sales to Lyme in late fall. “Kestrel and Lyme helped Cowls achieve the conservation outcomes we wanted,” Jones said.

At 1,050 acres and a $9.12 million sales price, the largest acquisition is in north Belchertown. That parcel, including the Bergeron, Great Hills, Gulf Road and Chimney Hills areas, is considered a critical wildlife corridor between the Mount Holyoke Range and the Quabbin Reservoir. Adjacent to it is the Holland Glen waterfalls and numerous other conservation areas created by Belchertown and Kestrel over the past 20 years. It also includes a mile-long stretch of the Hop Brook, a state-designated Coldwater Fisheries Resource.

The 950 acres in the Pelham Hills, almost all in Pelham off Buffam Road and with six acres in Shutesbury, was sold for $7.88 million. Also known as the Heatherstone and Lumley lots, that parcel contains the headwaters of Amethyst Brook and offers access to miles of trails, including a three-mile segment of the Robert Frost Trail. The forest lies between protected farms in Amherst, and existing conservation lands owned by Pelham, Amherst and Kestrel.

The protection of those contiguous forested tracts also offer the opportunity to return miles of the Metacomet-Monadnock Trail, now known as the National Scenic Trail, to its original route and secure several miles of the 47-mile Robert Frost Trail for hiking.

Others parcels include:

■About 77 acres in the Cushman section of Amherst, off Flat Hills Road and Overlook Drive, which was sold for $1.04 million. This tract hosts a trailhead for the Robert Frost Trail and is critical for drinking water protection due to it being within the Atkins Reservoir watershed.

■Another 229 acres in Orange and New Salem, off Horton Road and Fay Road, respectively, that was sold for $1.59 million. This tract has frontage on Lake Rohunta, a 255-acre great pond open to the public for fishing, and is next to the Quabbin Reservoir and the New Salem State Forest.

■Forty acres in Gill, off Pisgah Mountain Road, that was sold for $575,000. Also known as the Plante Lot, this tract is next to the Connecticut River Greenway State Park and conservation land owned by the Nature Conservancy. The forest includes a portion of Stacey Mountain, a prominent landscape feature along the Connecticut River.

Previous projects

Two previous large-scale conservation successes with Cowls, Kestrel and the state’s Department of Fish and Game set the stage for this latest acquisition.

Four years ago, 2,050 acres between the Quabbin Reservoir and North Amherst, located in Pelham, Shutesbury and Leverett, became permanently protected as the Walter Cowls Jones Working Forest through a $3.25 million conservation restriction. That was aimed at protecting the quality of water for local water supplies and in the Quabbin, preserving wildlife habitat and promoting continued production of timber.

W.D. Cowls continued to own the land, but was required to use sustainable forestry practices and leave the site open to hiking, hunting and fishing, and not use it for solar arrays, homes or cell and wind towers.

That supplemented the 3,486-acre Paul C. Jones Working Forest, centered on Brushy Mountain in Leverett and some land in Shutesbury. That was part of an $8.8 million deal in 2011.

DeBoer, in a statement, complimented W.D. Cowls for seeking ways to permanently conserve forests for the future.

“Over the last two decades, Kestrel and W.D. Cowls have collaborated to find the best paths to conserve forestland at a landscape scale,” DeBoer said. “The largest forested tracts in Pelham and Belchertown are enormously important to the people and to the wildlife who live in and near these forests; these woods are the heart and soul of this Quabbin region.”

Kestrel’s partnership with The Trustees of Reservations to permanently conserve the forests is what Katie Theoharides, president and CEO of The Trustees, said is a cornerstone of the organization’s new strategic plan, focusing on land conservation and stewardship of large intact open spaces through partnerships and collaborations.

“Protecting this land and the regional trail networks it connects will enhance people’s ability to get outside and enjoy nature,” Theoharides said. “This is the heart of our mission at The Trustees, to protect special places for everyone, forever.”

The Trustees then worked with Kestrel, understanding there could be a greater impact on conserving and stewarding such a vast forested landscape, connecting people with the land and building a foundation for future work together.

Theoharides added, “We’re proud to partner with Kestrel Land Trust, Lyme Timber and Cowls to do more than we ever could alone to protect large landscapes that are critical to climate resilience and adaptation across the commonwealth.”

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.