The prolonged battle over Plum Creek's development plans for the Moosehead Lake region has taken place on two levels: the actual and the symbolic.

Most of the time, the symbolic has overwhelmed the actual.

Here is what Plum Creek actually proposes: It wants the state to rezone hundreds of thousands of acres in the Moosehead region to allow it to develop two large resorts and almost 1,000 house lots. The proposal is the largest development plan ever submitted to state regulators.

Included in the proposal is a conservation easement on 91,000 acres that will remain a working, industrial forest. That proposal is targeted as mitigation for the development and as such, must improve forest management to counterbalance the loss of habitat and wild landscape in the lands slated for development.

Another, separate easement -- that company officials say will be secured only if the development proposal is allowed to go through -- would conserve about 340,000 acres in the region. The latter easement also would allow forestry operations on a significant portion of the conserved land.

Now, consider the symbolic level on which this discussion has taken place.

Several conservation organizations have partnered with Plum Creek on the larger easement and tout the plan as a way to protect important segments of the North Woods. But a number of prominent groups have cast Plum Creek and its plan as the death of the North Woods as we know it, as a visitation on the pristine and holy wilderness by the worst of urban depredations. "Save Moosehead!" read the bumper stickers.

On the other side of this symbolic battle are those who tout Plum Creek and its plan as the savior of the North Woods economy. "I believe the plan will give people hope and the confidence to move to Greenville," one struggling area resident told the Bangor Daily News.

Greenville's town manager said, "the proposal could cure and solve a lot of issues we have here."

Chambers of Commerce have roundly praised the plan, the organization representing rafting companies in the state has endorsed it and many local residents have taken a dim view of those fighting it.

"They're not here in the winter, when nobody's working," said one elderly clerk at a grocery store.

The reality -- the actual, predictable effects of the Plum Creek proposal -- falls between the hyperbolic extremes. Development means a loss of wildlands and the species that depend on those lands. It means potential for damage to the lands that remain. It means increased use of fragile adjoining ecosystems.

And so any mitigation offered must be meaningful and Plum Creek's current easement proposals, which allow cell towers, wind farms, gravel mining, sewage sludge spreading and water extraction and incorporate only vague guidelines for forest management still fall short of what we would consider adequate protection of conserved lands.

These are not the end of the North Woods as we know it, but they likewise don't represent the best deal the people of Maine can get.

Nor does the current scope of the development proposed represent the best offer for Maine. Plum Creek is a real estate developer and surely knows how to wrangle deals -- and it's a time-tested routine that you go in asking for far more than you expect to get.

The proposal for almost 1,000 house lots and two large resorts still strikes us as too much in terms of the carrying capacity of the local landscape. Perhaps 500 lots? 600 lots? Given that Plum Creek bought the land for about about $200 per acre and will sell lots for development at a huge premium, it probably can live with a smaller project.

Will Plum Creek's success mean success for the Moosehead region? We documented in this newspaper that the demand on infrastructure extension and services would strain local government. But the influx of people and dollars also will bring back vitality to a region long bleeding jobs.

You can find a study that fits one or the other extreme point of view -- that the development will either redeem or ruin the region -- but Moosehead's storied past featured a lot of tourists and recreationists who contributed to its economy, and it's possible to do that again. Differently, but again.

After years of back and forth, of testimony and analysis and public pressure, the good, patient and long-suffering Land Use Regulation commissioners -- who surely cannot earn enough money in a lifetime to compensate them for the work they're doing on this proposal -- now must make a decision.

No property owner is owed a rezoning; and the most intractable opponents to development cannot just give lip service to the needs of the people who live in the area. We hope the commission can strike a deal with Plum Creek that allows development, but not at a level that substantially changes the natural attributes of Moosehead.

The region needs development and growth, and it is not reasonable to say absolutely no to the Plum Creek proposal in hope that a "better" proposal will magically come along. Instead, the commission should drive a hard bargain with Plum Creek, and Plum Creek should accept it.