LEXINGTON -- Gov. Tim Kaine said Tuesday he isn't backing off his goal of seeing 400,000 acres of Virginia protected from development during his tenure, despite a $13 million cut the General Assembly made in his land-conservation budget.

"Twenty-five percent of the development that has occurred in Virginia since Jamestown was founded has occurred in the last 15 years," Kaine told an audience in a hilltop pasture on Ham Hill Farm south of Lexington.

"Swift action is needed" to preserve more land, Kaine said, while thanking farm owners Maurice Smith, his son Mack, and the extended Smith family for putting more than half their 600 acres under easement with the Virginia Outdoors Foundation.

Maurice Smith told the gathering of conservation officials and local government leaders he chose the easement because he had seen much valuable farmland lost to developers and it was his desire "for development not to take place on our homeplace."

Although state legislators talked about cutting all of the $20 million Kaine proposed for land conservation in his budget draft, they finally appropriated $6.6 million from the state's general fund through July 2008.

Included was $500,000 annually for two years to the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation and $950,000 the first year for the Virginia Outdoors Foundation.

That funding will allow the outdoors foundation to hire more staff to put easements into effect and check up on land already under easement to make sure the easements are being observed, said Rupert Cutler, a member of the foundation's board from Roanoke.

The biggest chunk of funds, $4.3 million, went for a Purchase of Development Rights program, in which local governments can get state funding if they buy development rights from farmers, Kaine said.

The governor said he still believes the state can protect several large parcels by purchasing them. Corporations such as timber and paper companies often want to sell their forest holdings, and those are prime candidates for conservation, Kaine said.

Much of the funding for large-parcel purchases fell to the budget ax this year, however, as legislators were reluctant to embark on new spending programs.

After his remarks on conservation, Kaine ventured into other topics with reporters, including transportation, utility regulation and a cancer vaccine for girls.

Kaine said he wants to make sure the legislation on his desk will allow parents a way to opt out of having their sixth-grade daughters receive the protection against human papillomavirus before they enter high school.

The vaccine would protect against several strains of the sexually transmitted virus, which causes cervical cancer.

Cancer is not contagious in the same way as diseases for which vaccination is currently required, and the need for prevention isn't as urgent, Kaine said.

Kaine also said he's glad the General Assembly passed a transportation bill, because it allows him to work on it -- an option he didn't have last year when the assembly failed to agree on funding.

This year's transportation bill has problems that need fixing, Kaine said. Its provisions for special tax packages in Tidewater and Northern Virginia can work only if local governments decide to impose taxes, he said, and its provisions for rural areas are inadequate.

Kaine also said he will revise legislation that would regulate electric utilities but hasn't decided how to do it. He said he plans to meet with officials of Dominion Power, Appalachian Power and consumer groups before deciding what to do.