America’s Land: A Cheat Sheet

Most people know vaguely that "public land" exists, but fewer know that "public land" is actually a patchwork of different designations, managed by different agencies, with wildly different levels of protection. The difference between a National Park and BLM land, for example, is the difference between land that cannot be drilled and land that absolutely can be.

Here's the breakdown of who owns what, and what that actually means:

If you want to understand why these distinctions matter, look at Utah. The federal government owns nearly 70% of the state — including Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, and Zion — making it one of the most federally controlled states in the country. In 2024, Utah got so frustrated with this arrangement that the state filed a lawsuit directly to the Supreme Court arguing it was unconstitutional for the federal government to hold 18.5 million acres of BLM land — land covering a full third of the state — without a formal designation. The Supreme Court declined to hear it in January 2025, but the lawsuit is still alive in lower courts. The kicker: critics pointed out that if Utah won, it would set precedent for other western states to claw back their BLM land too, almost certainly opening it up to drilling, mining, and restricted public access. The state most famous for its jaw-dropping public lands is also the state most aggressively trying to take them back.

BLM land — which at 245 million acres is the single largest category of federal land — has the lowest protection level of all. It was, quite literally, the land nobody wanted: the desert, shrubland, and tundra parcels left unclaimed after settlement. The fact that it now sits at the center of debates over drilling, mining, and grazing rights is not a coincidence.

Second, the conservation easement row at the bottom is the quiet outlier. These are private lands — owned by individuals, families, farms — where the owner has voluntarily, permanently restricted development rights, usually by partnering with a land trust. The owner keeps the land. They can sell it, farm it, pass it to their kids. But the conservation restrictions travel with the land forever, regardless of who owns it next. Painter would have recognized the concept immediately.

The US has roughly 640 million acres of federally managed public land — about 28% of the country's total land area. But only about 13% of all US land is permanently protected primarily for biodiversity conservation. The gap between those two numbers is doing a lot of work. 

30x30, and What Comes After

In 2021, President Biden signed what was called the America the Beautiful initiative, committing the United States to conserving 30% of its lands and waters by 2030 — a goal known globally as "30x30." It wasn't just an American idea; 196 nations had signed a similar pledge through the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, recognizing that protecting land at scale is one of the most powerful tools we have against biodiversity loss and climate change.

On day one of his second term, President Trump effectively reversed the US commitment.

The federal 30x30 initiative is, for now, effectively over at the national level. What's happened since is interesting, though, and worth paying attention to: states have started filling the gap. Nine states are currently implementing their own 30x30 goals. California has already conserved 25% of its land. Maryland hit 30% six years ahead of schedule. And Vermont — the state where Gamaliel Painter built his college and left his cane — is not chasing 30x30. Vermont is chasing 50x50: conserving half the state's lands by mid-century.

There's a reason Vermont is ahead of this curve. The state has been losing trees at a worrying pace, with more than 300,000 acres projected to disappear by mid-century without intervention. The economic and ecological stakes are immediate and visible. As one Vermont official put it: "Taxpayers get the value of biodiversity. They want to keep seeing maple trees growing in our state."

The Wilderness Act of 1964, still one of the most ambitious conservation laws ever passed, defined wilderness as "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." Today, more than 109 million acres carry that designation. The question is whether that number grows, holds, or shrinks over the next decade.

With the federal government stepping back, the action has shifted to states, land trusts, and private landowners. Conservation easements are one of the most powerful tools left. As of 2020, roughly 40 million acres of private land in the US were under conservation easement, a number that doubled in just the five years between 2000 and 2005 as awareness and tax incentives grew.

Here's What Else Is Happening

Vermont's 50x50 plan is worth bookmarking — the state is finishing phase one of a conservation inventory that will shape their efforts for decades.

The Land Trust Alliance maintains a directory of land trusts by state, if you're curious what's happening in your own backyard.

The Wilderness Act turns 61 this year. It's a good read if you've never looked at the original text. The language is genuinely beautiful.

Scientists estimate about one-third of all US plant and animal species are currently on a path toward extinction. That number sits differently once you understand the land map above.