The Conservation Fund, a national environmental nonprofit, announced Friday that they had purchased the Twin Pines Mining Site near Trail Ridge outside of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, “halting” the mining “threat.

A conservation group says it will pay $60 million to buy land outside the Okefenokee Swamp from a mining company that spent years battling environmentalists over its plans to extract minerals there.

An Alabama-based company that was close to receiving the final go-ahead from the state to mine near the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge has decided to instead sell the land to a nonprofit focused on conserving at-risk sites.