Our nation’s more than 400 national parks and monuments have been protected to preserve and remember extraordinary places and moments in American history, from the peaks of Yellowstone to the welcoming torch of the Statue of Liberty.
Over the past four years, federal land management agencies have made steady progress toward what may be the most fundamental change to America’s tradition of cultural, natural, and historic preservation since President Theodore Roosevelt established the first national monument more than a century ago. Under the Obama administration, the National Park Service, or NPS; the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM; and the Forest Service are creating a system of protected lands and historic sites that more accurately documents the diversity of the places, peoples, cultures, and beliefs responsible for shaping our history and better reflects who we are as a nation.
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