Check Out This Interactive Map Showing All the Conservation Land Near You in the U.S.

The United States has been at the forefront of land conservation for generations. Now an interactive map has compiled data on all the conserved American lands near you, from the smallest playground to the largest park, which perfectly sums up that success.

It uses data sets on conservation projects completed with money from the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), one of the most important conservation laws in the country and by far the most important when it comes to funding.

Over the decades, 150,000 LWCF grants have been used in every state and nearly every county to ensure that Americans have access to nature, that our natural resources are protected or sustainably harvested, that our species wildlife have opportunities to thrive or recover when threatened. and that the main cities do not lack playgrounds, gardens and more.

This interactive map, built for the LWCF by the non-profit organization Public land trust, takes the data from all of these projects and puts it into a single tool for the public to explore.

Viewers can search for projects by state or by departmentas the LWCF makes grants to the NPS, BLM, FWS, and the Forest Service.

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A report from Fast company It details that the data on all those projects has never been put in one place before and has remained largely fragmented.

In 2019-20, a series of government measures sought to permanently authorize the LWCF, rather than every few years as is normal in funding legislation, a measure that was passed and signed into law as part of the Great American Act. Outdoors. described at the time as “the most important dedicated financing [bill], ”In the history of the conservation of the nation.

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The LWCF does not use taxpayer dollars, but relies on a percentage of national revenues from offshore oil and natural gas extraction to fund projects. It is the largest source of public lands funding and has played an important role in creating the US Public Lands Catalog, which totals one-tenth of the world’s protected areas.

SHARE this great tool with other lovers of public lands …