Our Public Lands: What Are They, and How Can We Protect Them?

The United States’ public lands system is complex. It’s the product of over 150 years of shifting policies, protections and designations, administered by agencies with different mandates for management and developed across 30 presidential administrations. 

If you want to be a better advocate for these precious spaces but struggle with the difference between a national park and a national forest, or can’t remember what BLM stands for, this article is for you.

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As an environmental educator and conservation advocate with 16 years of experience and a master’s degree in environmental policy (MPP), I get a lot of questions about our public lands—especially when there is any regulatory threat to their protections. 

In this guide, we’ll look at some of the most common questions I’m asked: 

• What are “public lands?”
• What are the differences among national parks, national forests and national monuments? 
• What agencies oversee and administer our public lands?
• How are public lands protected? 
• How can we advocate for our public lands?

What Are Public Lands?

This may be the most common question I’m asked: If the government is in charge of public lands, then what do our “public hands” have to do with them? In other words, a national park belongs to the National Park Service, right? Not to you and me?

Here’s a quick, bite-size civics lesson.

Public land generally refers to property held in trust for use by the people and overseen by government agencies. These lands are specifically designated because they support our way of life and the country’s broader economy. To that end, they’re typically managed for the purposes of recreation and conservation; scientific, historic or cultural value; and resource use such as grazing, energy or timber. 

Government land can refer to any property managed by federal, state or local governments and operated using taxpayer money. Some examples include military bases, public schools, police stations, libraries, etc.

Understanding “Public Lands in Public Hands”

The U.S. is a representative democracy, meaning voters choose who represents our views and our needs in our government. So yes, public lands are ours; we just elect the federal government to manage them on our behalf.

For this reason, alterations—positive or negative—to those lands should be mindfully considered by everyone in this country. Indeed, legislative changes to public lands have impacted us all, from eliminated or downsized parks to privatization and intense resource extraction. Without constant vigilance, input and occasional protest, Americans risk losing both our unique heritage of park and wilderness preservation and a chipping away at the foundation of our representational democracy itself. Indeed, President Theodore Roosevelt himself wrote, “The movement for the conservation of wild life and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method.”

The rallying cry of “keep public lands in public hands” (also the name of a bipartisan act introduced in 2024 to require congressional approval for the sale or transfer of public land) reminds us of our ownership in these lands. Polls show the vast majority of Americans oppose selling off public lands and reducing park budgets, two of several recent threats to the quantity and quality of our parks and natural spaces.

Understanding National Parks, Forest, Monuments, and Other Public Lands and Waters

National parks, national forests, national monuments and national trails are the public lands most of us recreate on—but drawing clean lines between them gets complicated. Different public land classes have different protections and are overseen by different government agencies.

Consider the Appalachian Trail, for example: While it is a national scenic trail cooperatively managed by the National Park Service (NPS), the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the nonprofit Appalachian Trail Conservancy, it intersects two national wildlife refuges, six national parks, eight national forests, 12 watershed properties and 67 state-owned land areas. Each has different leadership and rules to follow, making management of the trail far more complex than it might seem at first glance.

Here’s a list of several prominent public land types across the U.S.:

• National parks are perhaps the most well-known public lands, typically getting all the attention (and Instagram likes). The NPS, a branch of the Department of the Interior, currently manages 63 national parks, including some of the most-visited public lands in the country, like Yosemite, Zion and Great Smoky Mountains. National park designation requires an act of Congress and the president’s signature. Additionally, the NPS oversees 433 units (also often called parks) and more than 150 related areas that include national lakeshores, national military parks and so on.
  
  
• National monuments are more complicated, namely because they can be managed by the NPS, USFS or the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Any place “of historic or scientific interest” can be deemed a national monument by law or presidential proclamation, including areas like mountains, islands, caves, forts, ruins and birthplaces. Many of today’s national parks started as national monuments, such as Joshua Tree, Acadia, Olympic and Grand Canyon.
  
  
• National forests and grasslands are a class of lands comprising mostly wooded, prairie and forested areas designated as “land of many uses,” including sustained yield of products and services (e.g., recreation, timber, wildlife, watershed and other purposes). With 154 national forests covering more than 193 million acres, they’re the most accessible public lands in the United States and have the largest workforce (30,000–35,000 workers). National forests are created by presidential decree or an act of Congress and are administered by the USFS under the Department of Agriculture.
  
  
• National trails include national scenic trails such as the Appalachian and Pacific Crest trails; more than 1,300 recreational trails accessible from urban areas across all 50 states; and national historic trails that follow significant routes, like the 4,900-mile Lewis and Clark Trail—along with connecting and side trails. Congress established the National Trail System in 1968. While the NPS manages most trails, some agencies, like the BLM, administer others.

  
  
• National wild and scenic rivers are protected free-flowing waters (and their immediate surrounding areas) that have certain value to the U.S. population, typically designated by Congress or, occasionally, the Secretary of the Interior. The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968 calls for eligible rivers to have “remarkable scenic, recreational, geologic, fish and wildlife, historic, cultural or other similar values.” Each is assigned one of three classifications:
  • Wild river areas are unpolluted waters with essentially primitive watersheds or shorelines, free of impoundments and accessible only by trail.
  • Scenic river areas are similar to wild river areas but are more accessible by roads and may have limited shoreline development.
  • Recreational river areas are readily accessible by railroad or road, may have some shoreline development, and may have been impounded or diverted at some point. Designated waters are primarily overseen by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), NPS, BLM and USFS.
    
    
• National marine sanctuaries are marine environments that are protected for conservation, ecological, cultural, historical, recreational, scientific or educational purposes. The National Marine Sanctuary System, overseen by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), comprises nearly 630,000 square miles of ocean and Great Lakes waters across 18 underwater parks, such as the Florida Keys.
  
  
• State, county, city and other local municipality parks are public lands—about 200 million acres’ worth—that are overseen locally rather than federally. They may be funded by city or state taxes, or other means, like conservation advocacy organizations or land trusts.
  
  
• Some public lands and waters defy simple categorization. When I’m teaching, I sometimes use the unofficial term “national areas” to capture some of the myriad other public lands found in the U.S. This includes national recreation areas like the Santa Monica Mountains near Los Angeles; wilderness and wilderness study areas like Cactus Plains Wilderness Study Area in Arizona; national wildlife refuges like Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver; and more. Each one is managed by a different department, sometimes multiple departments, sometimes both federal and state. Each individual managing agency is primarily determined by an act of Congress, based on the people, advocacy groups and politics that led to the land’s preservation.

For a more comprehensive description of many of these additional types of public lands, visit The Wilderness Society website.

The Primary Agencies Overseeing Our Public Lands and Waters

Knowing who manages various public lands can help you learn the rules and regulations for their use; direct letters of action; follow public comments about policy changes; and inform your voting decisions. There are several agencies that administer federal public lands, but here are some of the biggest by acreage.

• The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which falls under the Department of the Interior, manages more public land than any other agency. It oversees land used for both recreational and commercial purposes (e.g., grazing, timber harvesting), totaling some 250 million acres across the country. This is what conservationists are referring to when they use the acronym BLM (not to be confused with Black Lives Matter). 


  
  
• The National Park Service (NPS) also sits within the Department of the Interior, but its work focuses more strictly on natural and cultural preservation for public education and recreation. In total, the NPS oversees 433 units (often called parks) like Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park, and more than 150 related areas that include national lakeshores, national military parks like Gettysburg National Military Park, and so on—the equivalent of more than 85 million acres of national park land.


  
  
• The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) falls under the Department of Agriculture, and it administers protected forests and grasslands with an emphasis on biodiversity and productivity. More than 190 million acres of forests and 4 million acres of national grasslands fall under USFS purview. 


  
  
• Another agency under the Department of the Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) oversees the National Wildlife Refuge System, which includes more than 570 sites across all 50 states. The USFWS conserves and protects about 760 million marine acres and 95 million land acres for both recreation and natural resource purposes.  


  
  
• Additional agencies include NOAA, which falls under the Department of Commerce, the Bureau of Reclamation, under the Department of the Interior, the Army Corps of Engineers and more.

How Are Public Lands Protected?

To advocate for the preservation of our public lands, it helps to understand how they are protected—and how those protections can be challenged.

• National parks have enjoyed some of the strongest protection of all federal public lands. They’re ubiquitous in our country’s lore, extremely popular to visit and seem politically untouchable—almost. While they can only be created by Congressional act, there have been instances where national park land was changed or deregistered. Like when Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park was flooded to create a reservoir for San Francisco’s water supply (1923), or when the second national park, Mackinac National Park, lost its status and became Michigan state property (1895). Protection can erode in other ways, too: According to the National Parks Conservation Association, more than 25% of the NPS workforce has left or been removed from their posts by the Trump administration since January 2025. While public backlash over mass NPS firings helped reinstate many rangers’ jobs, the slower process to purge long-term public servants has continued throughout 2026 as part of planned reorganization.
  
  
• National monuments are in a more precarious position because they aren’t created by legislative consensus. The Antiquities Act of 1906 gives the president the power to create national monuments, but doesn’t explicitly grant the ability to rescind them. This hasn’t stopped some leaders from trying to change established monuments, though. The first Trump administration reduced Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in southern Utah, for example. While a former President Biden issued a declaration to restore the monuments, the Justice Department has since issued a memo determining the president does indeed have authority over national monuments. Earlier this year, both Bears Ears and Grand Staircase were again reduced by President Trump, by more than 90%. The National Resources Defense Council filed a federal lawsuit in 2026, arguing that the Antiquities Act doesn’t grant presidential ability to dismantle previously established monuments. Historically, Congress has also stepped into the national monuments debate, like when Joshua Tree National Monument’s boundary was shrunk by one-third in 1950 to make way for an iron mine. (The area now has national park designation.) With less consensus and fewer legal protections than national parks, national monuments face greater risk of politicization and upheaval. 
  
  
• National forests can also be changed or challenged based on decrees around their usage. Because national forests are guided by the principle that they be “land of many uses,” their protection levels can be questionable. Early national forests weren’t set aside to protect nature but to secure lands for resource extraction, like logging. In March 2025, the current Trump administration signed an executive order to increase logging in national forests to reduce imports from Canada and prevent fires (science doesn’t support logging as a fire prevention strategy in most forests). Other presidents have emphasized this “land of many uses” for recreation instead, so how well this public land is protected often depends on elected leadership.
  


  
• Lands protected for commercial use, such as those under BLM oversight, have also seen shifts. The Public Lands Rule was enacted in 2024 to balance disruptive land use—like drilling, mining, logging and grazing—with conservation and public access. However, under new administrative leadership in 2025, the BLM moved to eliminate the broadly popular rule, further highlighting the need for public vigilance and unity around our public lands. 
  
  
• State, county, city and other local municipality park protections vary by location and ordinance. While these public spaces are a critical piece of our parks puzzle, this article focuses on federal public lands. That said, understanding your local parks system is critical—many depend on regional and local politics for oversight and funding. For example, in Los Angeles, where I live, funding for our Department of Recreation and Parks is often on the chopping block, requiring our advocacy with city councilmembers and the mayor. Locally, many parks are considered secondary to other municipal problems, so they often need our advocacy just as much as national parks and forests do.
  

Note: The above chart focuses on long-standing expectations about the function of public lands in our federal government. Recent history has proved how rapidly precedent can be upended.

Becoming a Better Public Lands Advocate

Given this level of complexity, it shouldn’t surprise any conservation advocate to learn that while most U.S. residents support our public lands, many don’t know how many differences and nuances there are among them. If we don’t pay attention to our leaders’ actions for or against our public lands, we can miss the chance to advocate for them, and these precious places can be damaged easily—and irreparably. After all, it’s much easier to destroy a landscape than it is to repair it.

There are many ways we can serve as stewards of our public lands, even without being environmental policy experts. The REI Cooperative Action Network is a great place to stay up to date on current challenges and to advocate on behalf of all our parks, monuments, forests and every other cherished public space. 

It’s also why we need to vote and hold our elected officials accountable for how they manage the public lands we’ve entrusted to them, for the benefit of all. Pay attention to the choices they are making and how they will impact the parks you hold dear, and hold them to account whenever they do anything to disrupt, damage or destroy our public lands.

For even more information about how to protect and advocate for our public lands, visit the websites and resources of some of the co-op’s partners. 

• American Forests
• Arizona Trail Association
• The Conservation Alliance
• National Parks Conservation Association 
• North Country Trail Association
• Outdoor Alliance
• Partnership for the National Trail System
• The Trust for Public Lands

And now that you know the diversity of our public lands, you know exactly how to advocate for them. That right there is the most important way we can protect them.

Our Expertise

Alicia Harvie is the senior manager of the REI Co-op community and government affairs team, working closely with aligned partners and nongovernmental organizations as well as the Cooperative Action Network in order to drive lasting, positive change that helps protect our nation’s green spaces and allows more people access to the outdoors.

Taldi Harrison is the executive vice president of policy for the American Forest Foundation. Previously, she served as the chief program officer for the Foundation for America’s Public Lands and spent more than 10 years working in community and government affairs as well as cross-sector partnership efforts for REI Co-op. 

Jason “Journeyman” Wise is an environmental educator and certified California naturalist with a master’s degree in environmental policy (MPP). REI Co-op Member since 2016.