Two land conservation groups that are part of the Mt. Agamenticus to the Sea Conservation Initiative today announced the purchase of two significant properties in the Tatnic Hills region of South Berwick and Wells.

One is a 70-acre wooded parcel along Cheney Woods Road, purchased by The Nature Conservancy of Maine with grant money provided by Lowe’s stores to preserve working woodlots in Southern Maine. The property will continue to be a woodlot, and will be open to the public for non-motorized uses such as hiking, hunting, and bird watching.

The second parcel, purchased by the Great Works Regional Land Trust, is a 15-acre lot that connects two properties - Orris Falls and Balancing Rock - that are already in conservation. This area is known as the Tatnic Ledges, has extensive wetlands and provides access to a road that local author Sarah Orne Jewett referred to in her 1889 essay “White Rose Road.”

“These two properties have been high priorities for the MTA2C Initiative for years,” said Keith Fletcher of The Nature Conservancy. Under the purchase agreements, the land will be owned and managed by the conservation organizations and remain on the towns’ tax rolls.

The Tatnic Region has the densest concentration of vernal pools in the state. The rings of hills in the area are the remnants of an ancient volcano, and the land has unique bedrock, large rocks and numerous wetlands.

The Mt. Agamenticus to the Sea Conservation Initiative is a coalition of 10 land trust and conservation groups that have protected more than 1,800 acres since its founding in 2002. They focus on preserving land in a 48,000-acre area that includes the towns of Kittery, Eliot, York, Wells, South Berwick and Ogunquit.