For Sale: Spectacular, Never-to-Be-Tilled Nature Conservancy Land : Wyoming: Group purchased a 4,000-acre ranch and hopes to sell it for $5.6 million. The hitch is that the buyer must agree never to develop the property, which abuts the Big Horn Mountains.

The Nature Conservancy is trying a new way to conserve a key parcel of spectacular mountain-front scenery.

It has purchased a 4,000-acre ranch and is trying to sell it for $5.6 million. The hitch is that the buyer has to agree never to develop the property.

It’s the first time in Wyoming, and one of the few times nationwide, that the nonprofit organization has purchased land for the purpose of selling it to a private buyer who shares its concerns about the landscape. It occasionally buys critical parcels and holds them until government agencies can purchase them.

“We just hope, no matter what, that a conservation-minded person is going to buy it,” said Juanita Thigpen, spokeswoman in the conservancy’s headquarters in Arlington, Va.

The group’s action is the cornerstone of a larger effort to protect roughly 70 square miles of prime development property along the Big Horn Mountains and Bighorn National Forest in north-central Wyoming.

P.A.B. Widener III decided to sell his ranch to the conservancy last fall to protect the land, its elk range and several rare plant and animal species from the growing development pressures in northern Wyoming, according to Ben Pierce, director of the conservancy’s Wyoming chapter.

“This was a way that my dad could get his equity out of the land and do something for the good of the land at the same time and not cave in and sell to subdivisions and such,” said Pete Widener Jr. “You can’t go wrong with a lot of green space.”

The conservancy borrowed $4 million to buy the land with the idea of selling it right away, with Widener donating most of the balance of the sale price. Interest on the loan is accruing at a rate of $5,000 a week.

“We are still anxious to sell the property to a conservation buyer,” Pierce said. “But we purchased it with an understanding that it would be up to a two-year marketing frame. The summer season is certainly more productive than the winter season in selling ranches.”

The purchase must be to someone willing to donate a conservation easement on the land to the conservancy.

A conservation easement restricts non-agricultural development on the land and, in exchange, the landowner receives property tax deductions.

Pierce said the deal is a critical part of an effort to protect nearly 45,000 acres of scenic mountain-front property from development.

The group already had 8,000 nearby acres covered by easements. The Widener deal helped persuade 10 neighbors to donate another 9,200 acres of easements by March and the group is working with nine others for easements covering 23,500 acres.

“The 4,000 [acres] was the catalyst for the majority of the rest of the properties,” Pierce said. “I think there’s a little bit of the ‘not me first’ fear associated with some of these conservation easements.

“One of the Nature Conservancy’s primary goals is to use leverage in conservation of the landscape,” he said. “We can commit to a highly threatened piece of property and use the leverage as incentive [for] neighbors to take part.”

If neighboring state land is taken into account, success in the project would mean a protected landscape similar in size to a three-mile coastline strip one-third the length of Long Island, N.Y.

Long Island, which is about 120 miles long, is populated with millions of people, while northern Wyoming has only thousands. Nonetheless, the area is growing in popularity and major developments are cropping up.

“These are a lot of the buffer lands to what’s protected by the national forest,” Pierce said. “They are the single most threatened component to the landscape, the most susceptible to development. It kind of in perpetuity protects the most biologically significant lands.”

The conservancy has purchased and protected 8 million acres in North America, including 180,000 acres in Wyoming. The 790,000-member organization typically acquires sensitive land and holds onto it or gives it to a federal agency.

“We’re always looking at new approaches to conservation and, if this works for us, I don’t see why we wouldn’t try it again,” Thigpen said.