A conservation group said Monday it has an agreement to protect nearly 1,500 acres of private mining claims northeast of Yellowstone National Park.

The plan calls for the Trust for Public Land to use federal money to buy the land and convey it to the U.S. Forest Service, ending the fight over the proposed New World Mine near Cooke City.

In 1989, Crown Butte Mines proposed a large gold mine near Yellowstone. Conservation groups warned it would harm the park’s ecosystem and lawsuits were filed to stop the proposed mine.

In 1996, Crown Butte agreed to abandon its planned mine and create a fund to clean up past mining operations in exchange for $65 million in federal land and other assets.

Margaret Reeb of Livingston, who owned most of the claims that Crown Butte had the right to mine, wasn’t part of the negotiations and did not want to sell, TPL said. She agreed not to mine the land and owned it until her death in 2005.

Her nephews, Mike and Randy Holland, reached the agreement giving TPL the right to purchase the land and mining claims over a two-year period and to convey them to the United States for inclusion in the Gallatin and Custer national forests.

A spokesman for TPL did not immediately return a phone call seeking to find out how much federal money would be involved.