Our Work Protecting Wildlife and Habitat on Public Lands

Did you know that all American citizens share ownership of roughly 600 million acres of land and water across the United States?  It's true: almost one-third of the U.S. is owned by the public. As the legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie famously put it in his song, "This land is your land, this land is my land."

Federal public land designations include:

• National Parks
• National Forests
• National Wildlife Refuges
• National Lakeshores
• National Landscape Conservation System Lands
• National Recreation Areas
• National Monuments
• Historic and cultural sites
• Wilderness areas
• National Scenic and Historic Trails
• National Wild and Scenic Rivers
• ...and much more.  

The national designations don't include state and local areas owned by the public, which are also often considered "public lands." Federally designated public lands are managed by the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture, and other federal agencies for a variety of purposes.

Some of our most treasured places are public lands. We all collectively "own" gems like Yellowstone National Park, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Gettysburg National Military Park, Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, Tahoe National Forest and the Everglades.   

What NWF Does to Safeguard Public Lands

• Reforming oil and gas development on public lands

• Supporting conservation program budgets and other conservation tools 

• Protecting critical areas like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from fragmentation and development

• Ensuring important renewable energy development is developed in a way that sustains wildlife

• Reforming the outdated 1872 Mining Law in order to strengthen protections for fish, wildlife, and water resources

• Restoring bison to Montana's Northern Great Plains 

• Reducing conflicts between domestic stock and wildlife by:

  • working with sheepgrowers and other livestock interests to protect both livestock and wildlife like grizzly bears, bison, and bighorn sheep

  • retiring grazing-lease allotments through our Adopt a Wildlife Acre program, which has already retired over 550,000 acres on federal public lands