NORTH HUDSON – The nonprofit organization that’s owned and studied the Boreas Ponds tract for years is calling for the 20,758-acre parcel to be split roughly in half between wilderness and wild forest.

It’s the first time The Nature Conservancy’s Adirondack Chapter has weighed in on how any of the 65,000 acres it sold to the state since 2012 should be classified. The Conservancy bought those and more than 90,000 other acres of Adirondack forest land from the Finch, Pruyn and Co. paper company in 2007.

In a press release issued today, the Conservancy said the northern half of the tract should be managed as wilderness to connect to the High Peaks and Dix Mountain wilderness areas. Those 11,500 acres include the land surrounding Boreas Ponds and the adjoining Casey Brook tract. Wilderness is the state’s most restrictive classification, which bans motorized vehicles and most human structures.

The Conservancy said the southern half of the parcel, roughly 9,030 acres, should be managed as less-restrictive wild forest, where some motor vehicle use and structures are allowed. That includes the portion of the tract that extends to the Blue Ridge Road to the south and Elk Lake Road to the east.

The plan would allow construction of a long-planned snowmobile trail on the wild forest portion of the tract. It would mean the public would have road access to within a mile of Boreas Ponds, the tract’s most scenic feature.

“This balanced, hybrid land classification would advance priorities identified by local communities during the planning process, will expand the largest wilderness area in the Northeast, and will ensure that Adirondack communities and visitors to the Park all benefit from and share in the multiple values offered by this historic addition to the Forest Preserve,” Mike Carr, director of the Conservancy’s Keene Valley-based Adirondack Chapter, wrote in a prepared statement.

“We believe that motorized access to that point is important to create a balanced opportunity for public recreation that will draw more people into the area, which is important to community prosperity, without adversely impacting the wilderness experience of visiting the ponds.”