It was mere happenstance, two events more than 2,000 miles apart, but the irony was inescapable: at a time when the Western United States is losing a "football field worth of natural area" to development every 2.5 minutes, an opportunity to set aside nearly 100,000 acres in the Northeast as part of the National Park System was deemed within reach.

“The land in the North Woods area proposed for donation absolutely fits the National Park Service’s criteria for national park sites, including suitability, feasibility and national significance. There is no other representative landscape like the North Woods in the national park system,” National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis said Monday after touring the lands the Elliotsville Plantation, Inc., wants to donate to the park system.

“The long history of philanthropic giving in the National Park System developed here in Maine, with the gifts of land from John D. Rockefeller that created today’s Acadia National Park, and that tradition is alive and well today across the country," he added. "The people of Maine should be proud of this nationally significant natural and cultural landscape and the legacy of philanthropic conservation that took root here.” 

The potential 87,500-acre prize that could be added to the park system and abut Maine's Baxter State Park stands out in stark contrast to the news from the Center for American Progress, which held a press conference Tuesday to say how quickly natural areas in the West were being lost to development.

"With each flight home, we get a bird’s eye view of sprawling new roads, oil wells, and pipelines. The Oregon woods we explored as kids are now stumps without songbirds. We see fewer stars through Santa Fe’s brightening lights," reads a section of a webpage the Center launched to raise awareness of the vanishing landscape. 

Back in Maine, the odds of preserving a large swath of the Maine North Woods seemed to have grown with Director Jarvis' visit last weekend and into Monday, a trip that involved not just touring the lands in question but meeting with elected officials, including U.S. Sen. Angus King, and local residents.

“Hearing from North, South, East, West and Central Mainers about this proposal provides important context as I consider my recommendations regarding a possible new national park site in the North Woods of Maine,” said Director Jarvis, who didn't indicate when he would discuss the proposal with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.

The meetings seemed to somewhat sway Sen. King, who once strongly opposed the idea of a national park in the heart of Maine but said Monday that, "I'm not prepared to say ... no to something that will have a positive contribution..."

Additionally, the Bangor newspaper has endorsed the idea, as have voters in Maine's Second Congressional District, and the Katahdin Area Chamber of Commerce.

Not everyone is for the park, though, and some local officials have grown weary of saying "no" to it.

“No governing body has recommended or wants this park or monument, not on any level,” the Bangor Daily News quoted Millinocket Town Councilor Michael Madore as saying during a public meeting Monday. “This would be in our backyard. We ask that you please let this go, finally.”

Still, the tide seems to be turning in favor of the park, believes Lucas St. Clair, the son of Burt's Bees heiress Roxanne Quimby, who wants to donate not only 87,500 acres of her land to the Park Service, but throw in $20 million on the day the unit is established for an endowment for the park and raise another $20 million in the ensuing three years. The $40 million would be earmarked for maintenance and operations.

"It is unbelievably positive. I couldn't be happier," Mr. St. Clair said Tuesday during a phone call. "We had a public meeting last night (in Orono, Maine). We had probably 1,200, over 1,200 people show up. And there were probably only 200 or so who were in opposition. So we had about 1,000 supporters there. It was just a very well coordinated effort with banners, and hats, and T-shirts, and stickers and incredible speakers and everyone just rallied. 

"Director Jarvis and Sen. King walked out on the stage and got a standing ovation by a 1,400-seat auditorium that was filled almost to capacity," he went on. "It was just amazing."

Director Jarvis's visit allowed him to be "the ultimate validator for a lot of things that we've been saying we thought were possible," Mr. St. Clair added. "Certain activities, the way conservation would happen. People were able to ask very specific questions, and he was able to answer them very articulately with calm reason."

The North Woods project has changed drastically since it was initially broached back in the 1990s. At that time, supporters wanted to see a national park of more than 3 million acres, or roughly a third again as large as Yellowstone National Park. Strong opposition led to a significantly downsized vision, one that has even lost the "National Park" cachet in favor for the somewhat lesser "National Monument" attribution. The change is part of a strategy that would allow President Obama to use the Antiquities Act to designate the monument without congressional action, something not considered likely at this point.

Regardless of the name, the nearly 100,000 acres would bring a unique landscape to the National Park System, believes Mr. St. Clair.

"It's completely unique to the park system," he said. "This would be a unit like no other unit. This hardwood, northern hardwood forest and Eastern watershed and system of rivers, it just doesn't exist anywhere else (in the park system).

"The fact that this is within a day's drive of a quarter of the population of the United States is another factor," he added. "This one has a remote and wild feel, yet it's close to the megalopolis of the Northeastern Seaboard."

Mr. St. Clair still holds out hope for a "national park," but viewed the monument route as the most feasible at this point.

"I've changed my thinking a bit about the monument. I still want it to become a national park, I still want Congress to pass legislation that creates a park. But I also want these communities to start realizing some of the economic benefits that public lands provide," he said. "And the sooner we do that, the sooner the economic benefits begin to be realized. So if we can have this declared as a national monument as an interim step, have it managed by the Park Service and begin the process of building infrastructure and attracting visitors, then I think that's probably the way to go.

"...This is the centennial year of the Park Service, and the last year of the Obama administration. Could there potentially be an opportunity that we could seize?"

The calendar is running, both on the Park Service centennial and the waning months of the Obama administration. Mr. St. Clair said he'd like to have the land included in the park system before the president leaves office because a new administration would mean new relationships to build and garner support from.

"Part of me thinks that now is the time," he said. "Most of me thinks that."