Nearly 900 acres across Pennsylvania were added to the Pennsylvania Game Commission's system of state game lands - nearly 1.5 million acres total - in recent action at a meeting of the Board of Game Commissioners.

The new tracts are just the most recent additions in an ongoing string of more than 2,500 acres of additions to Pennsylvania's inventory of lands open to public use this year.

At their meeting, game commissioners approved the donation of 77 acres in Albany Township, Berks County, from Hawk Mountain Sanctuary; the purchase of 752.5 acres in Colley Township, Sullivan County, from The Conservation Fund; and the acquisition of 70 acres in Eldred Township, Monroe County, in exchange for issuing a right-of-way license for a natural gas pipeline on State Game Lands 168 in Eldred and Moore townships, Monroe and Northampton counties.

For the Hawk Mountain deal, money came through grant funding available for migratory bird habitat conservation through the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. in connection with the construction and operation of the Atlantic Sunrise Natural Gas Pipeline Project. The Game Commission worked through a partnership including Hawk Mountain and Berks Nature to develop and submit a grant proposal titled, "Kittatinny Bird Habitat Expansion."

The acquired property, known as the James K. Newell Living Trust Tract, has 58 acres of continuous agricultural field with woods at the margins and forested wetlands to the south of Hawk Mountain Road, which provides access to the property. Three Pine Creek tributaries flow through the tract.

In the purchase from The Conservation Fund, the Game Commission paid $200,000 generated from funds paid by Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. for voluntary mitigation designed to restore and preserve upland forest habitats for migratory birds and Indiana bats lost to construction and operation of the Atlantic Sunrise Natural Gas Pipeline.

The tract adjoins State Game Lands 13. It is mostly forested with limited understory. More than half is northern hardwoods, while the remainder is covered in hemlock/white pine and hemlock/mixed hardwood forest. Mehoopany Creek flows through the southern portion of the tract with a series of wetlands located in low drainages along a riparian corridor.

In addition, the property, which can be accessed from Route 487, is located within Important Bird Area 48, North Mountain-Ricketts Glen State Park, and Important Mammal Area 28, Ricketts Glen State Park.

In the third deal approved by commissioners, the Game Commission gets 70 acres in Eldred Township, Monroe County, in exchange for issuing a right-of-way license that allows PennEast to construct, operate, maintain and remove a natural gas pipeline on State Game Lands 168 in Eldred and Moore townships, Monroe and Northampton counties. PennEast also has agreed to give the 70 acres in addition to paying the commission's standard annual license fee and standard habitat, surface and timber damages.

The right-of-way license authorizes 7,956 feet of 36-inch natural gas pipeline in a 30-foot wide right-of-way occupying 5.48 acres of SGL 168.

The 70-acre tract is adjacent to State Game Lands 168 and will provide much-need public and administrative access to game lands on the Blue Mountain's north slope. The tract is predominantly mature hemlock forest interspersed with oak and reverting herbaceous openings along the floodplain of Aquashicola Creek.

Here are the details of other additions to Pennsylvania's inventory of lands open to public use so far this year.

In late July, Strawberry Hill Nature Preserve and The Conservation Fund announced the transfer of 560 acres to the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

Strawberry Hill Nature Preserve donated 80 acres and sold an additional 480 acres to ensure habitat protection, recreational access, and permanent stewardship of the Swamp Creek watershed.

The Conservation Fund provided transactional support. Strawberry Hill will use the proceeds from the sale to support environmental education programing at its 30-acre campus.

The land will be managed as part of Michaux State Forest, connecting the forest's northern and southern sections and providing a southern gateway to visitors.

The conservation effort was made possible with funding from DCNR's Bureau of Recreation and Conservation, NRG Energy, and the Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds.

A ribbon cutting will be held at 10 a.m. Monday, August 27, at Strawberry Hill Nature Preserve.

Earlier this summer, the Lancaster County Conservancy announced the purchase of 104 acres of woodland in Hellam Township, York County from Robert Kinsley. Funded by a public-private partnership, this property adds to the Conservancy's Hellam Hills Nature Preserve of protected forests and riparian buffers along the Susquehanna River.

The conservancy began working on protecting these critical lands in 2011. The owners, Marietta Gravity Water Company, were marketing the tract for development of an approved 23-lot residential subdivision.

In December 2016, the property was listed for public sale. Bob Kinsley negotiate a sale of the property from Marietta Gravity Water Company in early 2017 and held it for the conservancy until funding could be secured from DCNR in 2018.

Brookfield Renewable's donation of 200 acres in Martic Township, Lancaster County provided the match to the conservancy's DCNR grant, and the project was successfully funded.

In total, more than 300 acres will be opened to the public. In addition, the Conservancy plans to incorporate parking and an ADA trail on this new Hellam Hills property.

Both the Marietta Gravity Water Company property and the Brookfield Renewable land donation are within the Susquehanna Riverlands DCNR conservation landscape, a decades-long public-private partnership working to provide recreation, heritage tourism, scenic enjoyment, and educational opportunities for the public.

In late May, The Conservation Fund announced it had acquired 32,598 acres of sustainable timberland surrounding the city of Johnsonburg, Elk County.

Although the tract cannot yet be counted as totally in the public domain, under The Conservation Fund's temporary ownership, the land, called Clarion Junction Forest, will continue to be sustainably managed as a working forest, maintaining its role as a steady source of timber for local mills and jobs for timber crews.

Located within the Pennsylvania Wilds region, the property provides a bridge between Pennsylvania Game Commission lands and the Allegheny National Forest.

The Conservation Fund's purchase will maintain clean water and productive fishing streams, securing the confluence of the East and West branches of the Clarion River and 100 miles of high quality cold water fisheries, six miles of which hold the state's highest designation of Exceptional Value.

The Conservation Fund will work with public and private partners in the coming years to determine strategies to ensure the lands will remain healthy working forests. These strategies could include placing conservation easements on the land and transferring it to private ownership or conveying the land to a public agency for permanent protection.

In April, a coalition of conservation organizations and agencies announced that a 1,054-acre former Girl Scout camp near Dingmans Ferry has become part of the National Park Service's Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, permanently protecting it from development.

In 2012, the Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania decided to close Camp Hidden Falls, the result of efforts to consolidate camp operations across the region and improve facilities at their remaining sites. To ensure the property would be preserved, GSEP turned to the conservation community including Natural Lands and Delaware Highlands Conservancy.

After five years of negotiations, during which time Natural Lands was able to find a conservation buyer and secure grant funds to pay for the purchase, all the pieces came together. The Conservation Fund purchased the property in May 2017 and transferred it to the National Park Service on April 23.

The former camp includes more than 2 miles of pristine streams, 8 "hidden" waterfalls and 15 acres of wetlands. The property will help make a future connection between the 70,000-acre Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area and 20,000 acres of Delaware State Forest.

This conservation effort was made possible with funding from the Middle Delaware Mitigation Fund, established in 2012 by PPL and PSEG as compensatory mitigation for impacts resulting from the upgrades to the Susquehanna-Roseland transmission line. The mitigation fund is administered by The Conservation Fund in partnership with the National Park Service.

Additional funding was provided by the Open Space Institute's Delaware River Watershed Protection Fund, capitalized by the William Penn Foundation, and its Resilient Landscapes Fund, which receives funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; as well as from DCNR's Community Conservation Partnerships Program.