Land preserved on Tenn.-NC border for conservation

A conservation group has acquired nearly 10,000 acres of land for eventual public use on the Tennessee-North Carolina border.

The Conservation Fund, based in Arlington, Va., said in a news release Monday it had acquired 9,624 acres, which it intends to transfer to the state of Tennessee and the U.S. Forest Service.
An additional 2,237 acres of the tract was purchased by the Forest Service and is now part of the Cherokee National Forest.
Fund spokeswoman Vanessa Vaughan said the privately owned land is in the mountains in Greene and Unicoi counties and is known as the Rocky Fork tract.

Vaughan said the agreement reached with the previous owners protects the land from development while funds are raised from a variety of sources to pay for it.