Public Land Threats Map
Public lands are some of America’s most extraordinary places—and they are facing an increasingly complex set of threats.
The Public Land Threats Map is an interactive map created by Public Land Lovers to help visualize where and how public lands are being affected by development, infrastructure, resource extraction, changes in land management, and other emerging threats. From national parks and wilderness areas to wildlife habitat, national forests, BLM lands, and other federally managed landscapes, the map brings together information from across the country in one place.
Our goal isn’t to tell you what to think. It’s to help you see what is happening on the ground.
Public land issues are often difficult to understand because the important details are scattered across agency documents, environmental reviews, proposed rules, legislation, datasets, news reports, and public comments. A proposed road, mine, transmission line, border project, land-use change, or regulatory decision can look like an isolated issue when viewed on its own. On a map, the larger landscape—and the connections between these decisions—can become much easier to understand.
The map highlights threats and management changes affecting public lands across the United States, including national parks, national forests, Bureau of Land Management lands, wilderness areas, wildlife habitat, national monuments, conservation lands, and other protected landscapes.
Some threats are highly visible. Others are buried in planning documents or regulatory changes that may not make headlines. Some involve proposed development or infrastructure, while others involve changes to the policies that determine how public lands are managed.
We’ve included these places because we believe location matters.
A project doesn’t exist in isolation. It exists within a landscape.
A new road can fragment habitat. Infrastructure can cross migration corridors. Development can change the character of a wilderness boundary. Changes in land-management policy can affect millions of acres without a single piece of equipment ever appearing on the ground.
Seeing those relationships is an important part of understanding the stakes.
Why We Built This Map
We started Public Land Lovers because we love exploring public lands. But the more time we’ve spent traveling across the country, the more we’ve realized that enjoying these places also means understanding what is happening to them.
The Public Land Threats Map grew out of that curiosity.
We wanted a way to connect places, data, policy, and stories—and make complicated public land issues easier for anyone to explore.
This is not intended to be a comprehensive inventory of every threat facing public lands. The landscape is changing too quickly, and many issues are still developing. Instead, it is a living project that we will continue to expand as we find new information, research emerging threats, and learn more about the places we visit.
Explore the Map
Use the map to explore threats across the United States, zoom into places you know, and discover issues you may not have heard about.
Click on individual locations to learn more about the project, proposal, management decision, or landscape involved. Where possible, we’ve included links to source documents, government records, scientific research, and additional information so you can dig deeper.
Public lands belong to all of us. Understanding what happens to them is the first step toward deciding what we want their future to look like.
A Note About the Information
The Public Land Threats Map is an independent project created by Public Land Lovers. Information is compiled from publicly available government documents, agency datasets, scientific research, planning documents, and other sources.
Threats and projects represented on the map may be proposed, planned, under review, under construction, or already occurring, depending on the individual location. Inclusion on the map does not necessarily indicate that a project will be approved or that Public Land Lovers agrees with every characterization or conclusion presented in the underlying source material.
We make every effort to provide accurate and current information and to link to primary sources whenever possible. Because public land proposals, regulations, and projects can change, users should consult the underlying agency documents and current official sources before making decisions based on information presented here.
The map is intended as an educational and informational resource—not legal, regulatory, or professional advice.