Land and Water Conservation Fund
National Parks Inholdings Report
The Integrity of America’s National Parks Depends on the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
“There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias, the Canyon of the Colorado, the Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Three Tetons…and our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children . . . forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred.”
This was President Theodore Roosevelt’s proclamation to the American people in 1905, and these words catalyzed what author Wallace Stegner later coined “America’s best idea”—our national parks and, more broadly,the uniquely American system of public lands.
A decade after Roosevelt’s edict, Congress passed the Organic Act, codifying this nation’s commitment to conserving “the scenery and the natural and the historic objects and the wild life . . . to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”
Another century on, President Donald Trump reaffirmed that “America’s natural landscapes belong to the American people. And . . . we will always protect the great outdoors for hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, and the admiration, enjoyment, and reverence of every American citizen” when he signed the Great American Outdoors Act into law in 2020.
We the people are in lockstep: an overwhelming majority of Americans surveyed earlier this year support the idea of public lands.
What might the people say, then, if they knew that we lose 6,000 acres of open space—the equivalent of seven Central Parks—to development every single day in this country? How might they feel knowing that 15,000 inholdings, or private parcels that together are nearly the size of Connecticut, are scattered among the more than 400 National Park Service (NPS) units, which include National Parks and Monuments, National and Historic Scenic Trails, Battlefields, Preserves, and National Recreation Areas, making our treasured towering waterfalls, ancient redwoods, and striated canyons vulnerable to degradation?
The people, represented by Congress, established the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) in 1964 to acknowledge that our system of national parks and public lands is unfinished, that our “best idea” is not yet fully realized. The landmark funding stream gives Congress the power to complete and strengthen the system.
The LWCF is, simply, indispensable. It’s the largest dedicated source of money that can be used, among other things, to purchase those 15,000 private parcels over time, from willing sellers and according to duly acknowledged priorities, and to convey them to the federal management agencies charged with protecting and stewarding the land for the people’s “admiration, enjoyment, and reverence.”
And yet, recent attempts to water down the LWCF or to siphon funds to other uses run counter to its original, intended mandate. This paper presents—for the first time—data that demonstrates the extent and scale of private inholdings within the National Park System and lays out the inherent and growing vulnerabilities they create for public lands and people. It also illustrates with compelling case studies why LWCF is the singular tool to fulfill the vision of a untrammeled and uninterrupted system of public lands. Although the examples here come mainly from well-recognized national park properties, inholdings persist across the entire National Park System. They’re peppered among 18 NPS unit types including national preserves, national historic parks, national battlefields, and across national trails, as well as those managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS).
Congress must continue to pursue the realization and legacy of land, people, and promise that national parks represent, and their broadly held ideals, by upholding and safeguarding the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
