The National Landscape Conservation System

Headwaters Forest Reserve, CALifornia

Keep close to Nature’s heart . . .

and break clear away, once in a while, and 

climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean. 

John Muir,

American naturalist and author
15–Year Strategy 2010–2025: an overview 1

We Will Manage the NLCS . . . 

The 15-year strategy summarized here will direct the course of the Bureau of 

Land Management’s (BLM’s) National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS). 

America’s newest system of conservation lands was created in June 2000 to conserve, 

protect, and restore special areas and unique resources. Prized for their cultural, 

ecological, scientific, educational, wildlife, and aesthetic values, NLCS sites play 

critical roles in conservation efforts. In BLM Director Bob Abbey’s words, “We are 

at a unique moment in our history where we can tell BLM’s story of conservation 

excellence, in part, through the magnificence of our monuments, rivers, trails 

and wild country.” Under the NLCS strategy, Americans will have enhanced 

opportunities to care for these lands as well as reap diverse benefits. 

The NLCS is part of the larger portfolio of BLM public lands, which comprise more 

than 245 million acres, primarily in 12 western states. Managed for multiple uses, 

America’s resource-rich public lands provide our nation with vital commodities and 

host remarkable landscapes, ecosystems, and natural and cultural resources.

More than 880 units of conservation lands, trails, and waterways—each designated 

by Congressional act or Presidential proclamation—are now included in the NLCS. 

The system gained legal permanence in 2009 with the passage of the Omnibus 

Public Land Management Act. 

The following year, an NLCS 10th-anniversary summit was convened to engage 

partner organizations and BLM employees in creating a 15-year management 

blueprint. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, the summit’s keynote speaker, signed 

an Order on BLM management of the NLCS, saying, “The BLM plays a special role 

in protecting America’s great outdoors for the benefit of all Americans—for it is the 

national conservation lands that contain the forests and canyons that families love 

to explore, the backcountry where children learn to hunt and fish, and the places 

that tell the story of our history and our cultures.” Results from the summit were 

combined with other input to produce the new NLCS 15-year strategy. Provided 

herein is an overview that highlights major themes, goals, and actions.
2 The National Landscape Conservation System

Every great advance in science has issued

from a new audacity of imagination.

John Dewey, American philosopher and educator

MORLEY NELSON SNAKE RIVER BIRDS OF PREY NATIONAL CONSERVATION AREA, IDAHO
15–Year Strategy 2010–2025: an overview 3

to Conserve, Protect, and Restore

these special areas . . .

All NLCS units are designated in keeping with an overarching and explicit 

commitment: to conserve, protect, and restore natural and cultural resources as the 

prevailing activities within those areas, shaping all other aspects of management. 

To provide for uses that are compatible with landscape and resource values, NLCS 

managers will:

• Focus on conservation as the primary consideration in planning for and 

management of NLCS lands, consistent with designating legislation.

• Develop baseline information on NLCS lands through assessment, inventory, 

monitoring, evaluation, and scientific study.

• Base planning and decisionmaking on a scientific foundation using nextgeneration management tools.

• Promote the NLCS as an outdoor laboratory and demonstration center for new 

and innovative management and business processes.

• Provide for compatible uses consistent with the legislation designating each unit 

and in collaboration with surrounding communities and interest groups. 

• Plan and manage NLCS facilities with an eye to protecting resources, serving the 

public, and supporting local communities.
4 The National Landscape Conservation System

For if one link in nature’s chain might be lost,

another and another might be lost, 

till this whole system of things should vanish by piece-meal.

President Thomas Jefferson

ORGAN MOUNTAINS WILDERNESS STUDY AREA, NEW MEXICO
15–Year Strategy 2010–2025: an overview 5

across Landscape Boundaries . . .

Since NLCS units are intermingled with other BLM lands as well as lands managed 

by other entities, these units must be managed in the context of larger landscapes. 

To fully integrate NLCS lands with other BLM public lands, collaborate with local 

communities and interest groups, and establish connections across jurisdictional 

boundaries, NLCS managers will:

• Employ an ecosystem-based approach to manage NLCS lands in the context of 

surrounding landscapes.

• Engage in cross-jurisdictional, community-based, landscape-level planning and 

management.

• Consult with stakeholders, tribes, the U.S. Congress, and other Federal and 

State agencies to identify long-term management actions that will contribute to 

the ecological health of the larger landscape.

• Adopt a community-based approach to deliver recreational services that are 

consistent with the landscape character, resource values, and the socioeconomic 

goals of the local community.
6 The National Landscape Conservation System

In the long history of humankind 

(and animal kind, too)

those who learned to collaborate and

improvise most effectively have prevailed.

Charles Darwin, English naturalist

Fort Stanton-Snowy River Cave National Conservation Area, New Mexico
15–Year Strategy 2010–2025: an overview 7

together with Partners . . .

Shared stewardship of public lands and support from communities are critically 

important to the realization of NLCS objectives. To connect diverse groups of 

people, interests, and organizations and “tell the NLCS story,” managers will: 

• Launch a long-term public awareness initiative about the BLM’s NLCS that 

includes national and local outreach, communications, and media plans.

• Advance and strengthen partnerships throughout the NLCS to facilitate 

shared stewardship and to advance the relevance of the conservation lands to 

communities of interest and place. 

• Expand the use of volunteers within the NLCS, particularly in data collection 

and scientific studies.

• Engage the public in conservation lands stewardship through education and 

interpretation. 

• Recruit and retain well-trained youth from diverse backgrounds for entrylevel careers, and engage youth in recreation, education, and stewardship on 

conservation lands. 
8 The National Landscape Conservation System

We are the only species which,

when it chooses to do so,

will go to great effort

to save what it might destroy.

Wallace Stegner, 

American writer and environmentalist

GRAND GULCH WILDERNESS STUDY AREA, UTAH
15–Year Strategy 2010–2025: an overview 9

with a Commitment 

to Conservation excellence

The NLCS can achieve excellence by building a shared commitment to its mission. 

To ensure adequate staffing and funding and fully integrate the NLCS with other 

BLM programs, managers will:

• Improve internal communication and understanding of the NLCS and its 

potential to enhance the BLM as a whole.

• Cultivate shared responsibility for the conservation mission as an integral part of 

the BLM’s multiple-use, sustained-yield mission.

• Clearly define, understand, and justify staffing needs and organize NLCS areas 

to operate across many BLM resource programs.

• Ensure that the NLCS budget is aligned and integrated with the priorities of 

other BLM programs. 
10 The National Landscape Conservation System

The wilderness and the idea of wilderness 

is one of the permanent homes 

of the human spirit.

Joseph Wood Krutch, 

American writer and naturalist

HandIes Peak Wilderness Study Area, COlorado
15–Year Strategy 2010–2025: an overview 11

LITTLE KNOWN . . . 

RUGGEDLY BEAUTIFUL . . .

A GIFT TO AMERICA

National Landscape Conservation System

LITTLE KNOWN . . . 

RUGGEDLY BEAUTIFUL . . .

A GIFT TO AMERICA

National Landscape Conservation System
The National Landscape Conservation System

AH-SHI-SLE-PAH WILDERNESS STUDY AREA, NEW MEXICO
15–Year Strategy 2010–2025: an overview
The National Landscape Conservation System

To view the full NLCS 15-Year Strategy or for additional NLCS information 

and maps, please visit the NLCS website at http://www.blm.gov/nlcs.

Additional copies of this publication are available from:

Chief, National Landscape Conservation System (WO-410)

Bureau of Land Management

1849 C Street, NW, Room 2134LM

Washington, DC 20240

Tel.: (202) 912-7170

2011

Cover photo: Grand StaircaseEscalante National Monument, Utah

© Howie Garber, DanitaDelimont.com

BLM/wo/gi-11/012+6100 

P-466