During various road trips across the US, I started actually paying attention to the signage. Of course, I paid attention to traffic and route related signs previously, but instead, I took note of all the signage demarking National Forests and various other land types. We also visited a plethora of different “park” types sprinkled across the country – national parks, national lakeshores, national memorials, national battlefields, national recreation areas, national monuments, and on-and-on. This got me thinking: Who manages these public lands? What are the differences between these public land designations? Is there some logical rationale to the overall organization of public lands?
My research led me down a convoluted path (we are talking about the federal government after all). I decided to organize my posts as follows: (A) management agencies, (B) unit designations, (C) historical background, and, finally, (D) overarching laws related to nature conservancy and environmental protection.
The single best source I found during my research was not any one Wikipedia article but rather a report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS). VINCENT et al., “Federal Land Ownership: Overview and Data,” Congressional Research Service Report, R42346, last updated Feb. 2020.
Introduction – Federal Land Management Agencies
As of 2020, the federal government owns and/or manages roughly 640 million acres of land in the United States! Let that number sink in for a moment. That’s ~2.5 million square kilometers or ~1 million square miles.
Four major federal land management agencies manage about 95% of all federal land in the United States. These agencies are as follows: Bureau of Land Management (BLM), ~250 million acres; Forest Service (FS), ~190 million acres; Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), ~90 million acres; and National Park Service (NPS), ~80 million acres. Most of these lands are in the West, including Alaska. The BLM, FWS, and NPS fall within the purview of the Department of the Interior while the FS is within the orbit of the Department of Agriculture. In addition, the Department of Defense (DOD) administers ~10 million acres in the United States, about 2% of all federal land. The remaining acreage, approximately 3% of all federal land, is managed by a variety of government agencies.
As shown in the above table, the overwhelming majority of federal lands lie in Alaska and the 11 western states - AZ, CA, CO, ID, MT, NM, NV, OR, UT, WA, and WY. By percentage stake, Nevada is #1 in federally managed land at 79.6%, while Connecticut is #50 at 0.3%. However, Alaska dominates in total acreage at 224 million acres.
The creation of national parks and forest reserves laid the foundation for the current federal agencies whose primary purposes are managing natural resources on federal lands—the BLM, FS, FWS, and NPS. These four agencies were created at different times, and their missions and purposes differ. As noted, DOD is the fifth-largest land management agency, with lands consisting of military bases, training ranges, and more. These five agencies, which together manage about 97% of all federal land, are described below. Numerous other federal agencies— the Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, Post Office, NASA, Department of Energy, and many more—administer additional federal lands.
Forest Service (FS)
The FS is the oldest of the four federal land management agencies. It was created in 1905, when responsibility for managing forest reserves (renamed national forests in 1907) was joined with forestry research and assistance in a new agency within the Department of Agriculture (USDA). In 1891, Congress had authorized the President to establish forest reserves from the public domain lands administered by the Department of the Interior via the Forest Reserve Act. Today, the FS administers ~190 million acres of land in the United States, predominantly in the West, while also managing about three-fifths of all federal lands in the East.
Forest reserves—now called national forests—were originally authorized to protect the lands, preserve water flows, and provide timber. These purposes were expanded in the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960. This act added recreation, livestock grazing, and wildlife and fish habitat as purposes of the national forests, with wilderness added in 1964. The act directed that these multiple uses be managed in a “harmonious and coordinated” manner “in the combination that will best meet the needs of the American people.” The act also directed sustained yield—a high level of resource outputs in perpetuity, without impairing the productivity of the lands.
The mission of the FS is "to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation's forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations." The agency's ecosystem approach to management integrates ecological, economic, and social factors to maintain and enhance the quality of the environment to meet current and future needs. Through implementation of land and resource management plans, the agency ensures sustainable ecosystems by restoring and maintaining species diversity and ecological productivity that helps provide recreation, water, timber, minerals, fish, wildlife, wilderness, and aesthetic values for current and future generations of people. General recreation is free on most all FS lands, and hikers/campers are free to go almost anywhere on FS managed lands.
Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
The BLM was formed in 1946 by combining two existing agencies. One was the Grazing Service (first known as the DOI Grazing Division), established in 1934 to administer grazing on public rangelands. The other was the General Land Office, which had been created in 1812 to oversee disposal of the federal lands under the Homestead Acts. The BLM currently administers more federal lands in the United States than any other agency: ~250 million acres. BLM lands are heavily concentrated (over 99%) in the 11 contiguous western states and Alaska. The agency manages over 220 wilderness areas, 27 national monuments, and 635 other protected areas as part of the National Landscape Conservation System -- now known as the National Conservation Lands, totaling about 36 million acres of National Conservation Areas, Wilderness Areas, Wilderness Study Areas, and other unit types.
The mission of the BLM is "to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations." As defined in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (NLPMA) of 1976, BLM management responsibilities are similar to those of the FS—sustained yields of the multiple uses, including recreation, grazing, timber, watershed, wildlife and fish habitat, and conservation. However, each agency historically has emphasized different uses. For instance, more rangelands are managed by the BLM, while most federal forests are managed by the FS. In addition, the BLM administers about 700 million acres of federal subsurface mineral estate throughout the nation. Licensed hunting, grazing, energy and mineral extraction, and timber extraction activities are permitted on BLM managed lands. However, general recreation is free on most all BLM lands, and hikers/campers are free to go nearly anywhere on BLM managed lands.
Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)
The first national wildlife refuge was established by executive order in 1903, although it was not until 1966 that the refuges were aggregated into the National Wildlife Refuge System administered by the FWS. The FWS was formed from of a merger of the Bureau of Fisheries and the Division of Biological Survey in 1940. The FWS is dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is "working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people."
Today, the FWS administers ~90 million acres of federal land in the United States, of which about 86% are in Alaska. The FWS has a primary-use mission—to conserve plants and animals. Other uses (recreation, hunting, timber cutting, oil or gas drilling, etc.) are permitted, to the extent that they are compatible with the species’ needs. However, wildlife-related activities (hunting, bird-watching, hiking, education, etc.) are considered “priority uses” and are given preference over consumptive uses such as timber, grazing, and mineral extraction. It can be challenging to determine compatibility, but the relative clarity of the mission generally has minimized conflicts over refuge management and use, although there are exceptions. Some of the NWRs are fee areas but are generally less frequented than NPs.
National Park Service (NPS)
The National Park Service Organic Act of 1916 formed the NPS. The NPS was created to manage the growing number of park units established by Congress and monuments proclaimed by the President. Currently, the National Park System contains 423 units with over 85 million acres. Alaska holds about two-thirds of these lands. NPS units have diverse titles: national park, national monument, national preserve, national historic site, national recreation area, national battlefield, and others.
The NPS has a dual mission—to preserve unique resources and to provide for their enjoyment by the public. Park units include spectacular natural areas (e.g., Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, and Arches National Parks), unique prehistoric sites (e.g., Mesa Verde National Park and Dinosaur National Monument), and special places in American history (e.g., Valley Forge National Historic Park, Gettysburg National Military Park, and the Statue of Liberty National Monument), as well as recreational opportunities (e.g., Cape Cod National Seashore and Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area). The tension between providing recreation and preserving resources has caused many management challenges. Hunting, grazing, energy and mineral extraction, and timber extraction are prohibited on some NPS managed lands (with some exceptions and limitations). Most NPS managed units require a fee for general recreation, and hikers/campers are restricted to designated trails and campsites.
Department of Defense (DOD)
The National Security Act of 1947 established a Department of National Defense (later renamed the DOD) by consolidating the previously separate Cabinet-level Department of War (renamed Department of the Army) and Department of the Navy and creating the Department of the Air Force. Responsibility for managing the land on federal military reservations was retained by these departments, with some transfer of Army land to the Air Force upon its creation. There are more than 4,800 defense sites worldwide comprising over 26 million acres of land owned, leased, or otherwise possessed by DOD. Of the DOD sites, over 11 million acres are situated within the United States, with individual parcel ownership ranging from 0.1 acres owned to over 2.3 million acres (for the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico). Although management of military reservations remains the responsibility of each of the various military departments and defense agencies, those secretaries and directors operate under the centralized direction of the Secretary of Defense. With regard to natural resource conservation, defense instruction provides that:
The principal purpose of DOD lands, waters, airspace, and coastal resources is to support mission-related activities. All DOD natural resources conservation program activities shall work to guarantee DOD continued access to its land, air, and water resources for realistic military training and testing and to sustain the long-term ecological integrity of the resource base and the ecosystem services it provides.... DOD shall manage its natural resources to facilitate testing and training, mission readiness, and range sustainability in a long-term, comprehensive, coordinated, and cost-effective manner.
As such, DoD is responsible for the lands and waters under its control. This includes managing highly diverse habitats from coastal to mountainous, desert to forest, sagebrush to longleaf pine. DoD accomplishes this via Integrated Natural Resources Management Plans (INRMP). INRMPs use an ecosystem-based approach, and balance conservation and mission activities to provide “no net loss” to testing, training, and operational activities.
Bonus Agency I: Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)
The BIA, founded in 1824 by John C. Calhoun, is responsible for the management of ~55 million acres of land held in trust for the U.S. for Native Americans. The BIA is one of two bureaus under the jurisdiction of the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs: the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Education, which provides education services to approximately 48,000 Native Americans. The BIA is currently trying to evolve from a supervisory to an advisory role.
Bonus Agency II: Bureau of Reclamation (BR)
The Reclamation Act of 1902 created the BR and also funded irrigation projects for the arid lands of the American West. The BR oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and operation of the diversion, delivery, and storage projects that it has built throughout the western United States for irrigation, water supply, and attendant hydroelectric power generation. Currently the BR is the largest wholesaler of water in the country, bringing water to more than 31 million people, and providing one in five Western farmers with irrigation water for 10 million acres of farmland, which produce 60% of the nation's vegetables and 25% of its fruits and nuts.
The Reclamation Act set aside money from sales of semi-arid public lands for the construction and maintenance of irrigation projects. The newly irrigated land would be sold and money would be put into a revolving fund that supported more such projects. This led to the eventual damming of nearly every major western river. This Act was later amended by the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 to limit the corporate use of water and speculation on land that would benefit from irrigation. Reclamation includes draining, too.
John Wesley Powell, often considered the father of reclamation, began a series of expeditions to explore the American West in 1867. He saw that after snowmelt and spring rains, the rivers of the West flooded, releasing huge amounts of water and that for the rest of the year, not enough rain fell to support any kind of real agriculture. He concluded that the Western United States was so arid that it could not yet support extensive development. However, the U.S. government saw too much economic potential in the West to heed Powell's warning. By damming western rivers in order to support massive irrigation projects, population growth and farming were made possible.