The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) has protected America’s favorite public lands for 56 years. With full, permanent funding of the program recently secured through the Great American Outdoors Act in 2020, we want to celebrate the victory by sharing your LWCF stories from across the country. LWCF has touched thousands of places and millions of faces, in every state and U.S. territory, and will continue to protect our public lands for generations to come.

Here are a few of those special places and faces:

Protecting Watersheds

Yakima Basin, Washington

The Nature Conservancy in Washington is partnering with the Okanogan Wenatchee National Forest on a project to protect 12,000 irreplaceable acres in the Taneum watershed. With support from the Land and Water Conservation Fund this project would transfer 12,000 acres of privately owned parcels to the National Forest. In addition to the outdoor recreation opportunities in the area, the forest lands of the Taneum are important habitat for fish and wildlife and are a precious water source near the headwaters of the Yakima River. This watershed supports agriculture, outdoor recreation and natural resource economies – both up in the Central Cascades and downstream in the Yakima Valley.

Preserving Indigenous Cultural Sites

Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park, Georgia

This past year, Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park received $2.8 million from LWCF to protect the Lamar Mounds. The project will not only connect two separated areas of the park to ease public access, but also preserves a significant Native American cultural site. Ocmulgee Mounds contains 17,000 years of Indigenous history and artifacts, and acquisition of this new area will ensure permanent protection of the ancestral homeland of The Muscogee (Creek) Nation.

Protecting River Access

Black River, South Carolina

Black River Story Map (Scroll through):