Multiple Use on Public Lands

Table of contents

Origin of Multiple Use

Logging

Mining

Cattle Grazing

Oil, Gas, and Coal

Renewable Energy

Hunting

Recreation

What's All This Mean?

Mountain biking in Moab, you might come by an oil well. Hiking in New Mexico’s wilderness, you might meander by a domestic cow. Driving to a Montana trailhead, you might get stopped in your tracks by a logging closure. Public lands seem like spaces for wildlife and wilderness to thrive, and yet they are used by various industries or licensed by individuals. So what gives? For more than half a century, a doctrine called “multiple use” has guided much of our public land policy. This means that Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management land in particular, isn’t just for recreating and wildlife: Extractive industry plays a big role there, too. Below, we break down how logging, timber, grazing, drilling, and more have historically and continue to influence the places we get outside.

The Origin of Multiple Use

From its genesis, the country’s public land has been used for all kinds of things. As early settlers brutally displaced Indigenous people and purchased land from other colonial powers, the United States acquired a tremendous amount of territory. At its peak, the U.S.’s so-called “public domain” totaled around 1.8 billion acres. (To put this in context, the country as a whole is about 2.3 billion acres today, including both public and private land.) As colonists spread westward, much of that land was sold or transferred to companies, individuals, and states. Land was cleared and developed throughout the West’s seemingly endless natural space to fuel the country’s rapid expansion. Logging, in particular, fueled the building of homes, railroads, steamboats, and more. As the 19th century wore on, it became clear that we needed to collectively do more to preserve landscapes and ecosystems from the damages of industry.

In response, the country started setting aside tracts of land. Yellowstone, the country's first national park, came in the 1870s. Forest reserves were established beginning in 1891. To understand where we’re at today, it’s especially helpful to dig into the history of the U.S. Forest Service. The agency was created in 1905, and its first chief was a forester named Gifford Pinchot. Unlike preservationists like John Muir, Pinchot wasn’t interested in the pure aesthetic and ecological value of landscapes. Instead, he professed that our national forests were for people. The resources there, he thought, could serve “the greatest good for the greatest number in the long run.” This utilitarian ethic set up a conflict that continues today: conservation versus preservation. Preservationists value the intrinsic, ecological, and even spiritual value of near-untouched landscapes. But according to Pinchot’s worldview, humans could be responsible stewards of our public lands, and the trees in our national forests could serve the country for generations down the line. Even today, the Forest Service remains in the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Agriculture rather than under the Department of the Interior, like our other public land management agencies. Trees are treated much like corn, wheat, or other crops.

By the middle of the 20th century, many lawmakers and conservation groups thought the country’s national forests had fallen too far under the influence of the logging industry. In response, a landmark law was passed: the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960. This law formally established Forest Service land as more than just a tree factory: The demand for timber was still clear and pertinent, but the law dictated that timber was just one of many purposes on public land. Mining, cattle grazing, oil and gas extraction, and, of course, recreation all had a role there, too. Importantly, multiple use dictates that no single activity on public land is greater than any other. So, timber has a role every bit as much as hiking. About a decade and a half later, another law—the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976—formalized a similar policy for areas managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

Even today, the Forest Service remains in the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Agriculture rather than under the Department of the Interior, like our other public land management agencies. Trees are treated much like corn, wheat, or other crops.

These laws left the legacy we have today: Hundreds of millions of acres of public land are open for recreation like hiking, mountain biking, and hunting, while at the same time they’re subject to logging, mining, and oil and gas drilling. Finding the right balance of all those activities—especially as outdoor recreation booms—is something the government has long been trying to strike. Here, we dissect the extent to which these activities are going on on our public land nationwide.

Logging

In 2023, the U.S. Forest Service sold 3.08 billion board feet of timber, which is the most sold in a single year for quite some time. Since 2010, the per-year average has been around two to three billion board feet. This is a hard number to conceptualize. A board foot of timber means a piece of wood 12 inches long, 12 inches wide, and 1 inch thick. So, three billion board feet of timber, placed end to end, could span from the earth to the moon and back, with quite a bit of lumber to spare. In short: That’s a lot of wood.

Though it’s a stark number, logging activity on public land has seen huge declines over the last few decades. For a time, timber defined life in many areas surrounded by public land, especially in the Pacific Northwest. By the 1980s, loggers sometimes cut more than 10 billion board feet per year. Then came catastrophe—or salvation, depending on how you look at it. Battles over an endangered species, the Northern Spotted Owl, led to the government sectioning off large chunks of forest from logging to preserve the species. At the same time, other market forces—including mechanization—created seismic shifts in the timber industry. The economic impact of the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest withered away, along with once-vibrant logging towns.

Then came catastrophe—or salvation, depending on how you look at it. Battles over an endangered species, the Northern Spotted Owl, led to the government sectioning off large chunks of forest from logging to preserve the species.

Today, logging continues on federal land. However, the Forest Service fell shy of its timber harvest goals every year from 2014 to 2023, a recent GAO report found. At the same time, the Trump Administration has aimed to speed up logging on Forest Service land through executive orders that could make environmental review less intensive and up the demand for U.S. trees. Still, foresters are learning how to deal with the unique problems of our modern era. Large-scale clear cuts, for one, are no longer in vogue as a logging technique. Forestry often focuses to some extent on more sustainable and even beneficial logging techniques. This includes thinning forests and using prescribed fires, especially around communities vulnerable to wildfires. However, making these techniques financially viable—especially with a withering timber industry—is a tough nut to crack.

Mining

Mining is a huge industry on federal land—and one with a dearth of publicly available data. Here’s what we know: There were active mining claims on about 1.3 million acres of federal land in 2018, according to the Government Accountability Office. The vast majority of mining happens on BLM land, so that’s what we’ll focus on here. As of 2023, the agency had nearly 628 million mining claims on its land. Those claims generated $95 million in revenue. According to Congressional testimony from a Department of Interior employee, this was the highest number of active mining claims on federal land in the 21st century. Unlike oil and gas, mining claims on federal land don’t require mining companies to pay the federal government royalties on the materials they harvest from the earth. The government doesn’t require any reporting on total production of minerals on federal land, either, or even reporting on what’s being mined. All in all, there’s little information about the productivity of mining on federal lands.

Across all our federal land, more than a century of mining claims have left a smattering of mines throughout national forests, BLM land, and even in some national parks. Though no new mining claims are allowed in national parks or wilderness areas—these were prohibited in the 1970s and 80s, respectively—old claims have, in many cases, been grandfathered in. Mining claims are often marked with simply a cairn and a post, or even, for a time, 4-inch PVC pipe. (The latter is now illegal in places they were once prevalent, like Nevada, since nesting birds get trapped inside and die—though they can still be found all over federal lands in the West.) So, if you come across a mysterious post in the middle of nowhere, you might just be on the boundary of a mining claim.

During the last few years, a new sort of gold rush has begun on federal land. Minerals like lithium, copper, and cobalt—necessary for renewable energy—are in high demand.

Starting in the 1970s, the federal government began requiring mining companies to clean up, or “reclaim,” their mining sites when operations completed. However, there are hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines leftover from before those requirements were enacted in need of remediation. Mining has a long legacy of both bounty and damage on our federal public lands that continues to this day.

During the last few years, a new sort of gold rush has begun on federal land. Minerals like lithium, copper, and cobalt—necessary for renewable energy—are in high demand. Producing these materials domestically could reduce reliance on environmentally destructive and often socially unjust mines abroad. But many proposed mine sites are on lands culturally important to Indigenous groups and home to sensitive species. Now, the Trump Administration has issued an executive order urging the Interior Secretary to prioritize upping the pace and scale of mining across federal lands over other activities. In particular, the president cited interest in gold, potash, uranium, copper, and other critical minerals. One of the thorny questions in an era of climate change is: How do we produce the materials we need to fuel the renewable energy transition while at the same time conserving habitat, ecosystems, open space, and culture?

Cattle Grazing

Cattle grazing has shaped our federal lands from their institution. As of 2023, roughly 22,000 ranchers lease about 250 million acres of federal land (more than a third of our country’s total federal land) to graze cattle. Though there is some cattle grazing in national parks, wilderness areas, and even national wildlife refuges, most of this rangeland is on Forest Service and BLM land. Roughly 1.5 million cattle graze federal land, which is but a small fraction of the 87.2 million head of cattle in the country as a whole. But if an average cow yields about 500 pounds of meat (this is a rough estimate; this number varies by species, age, and other factors), federal lands produce about 750 million pounds of beef annually.

Here’s how grazing works: Often, ranchers’ private property alone isn’t enough to support their herds. Or, alternatively, their land is broken up by sections of public land. So ranchers apply for a permit or lease for federal land, which usually lasts for up to 10 years. If approved, they pay based on the number of animals they’re grazing. A key term to know here is Animal Unit Month, or AUM. That quantifies the amount of forage one cow, with or without a calf, consumes in a few weeks. It’s a lot of grass: roughly 780 pounds. It’s also the figure the government uses to charge ranchers for grazing on federal land.

Woman in Arc'teryx Cerium Hoody down jacket with cow on hillside

In 2024, the government is charging $1.35 per AUM—the lowest amount permitted by law. For comparison’s sake, a Congressional Research Service report found that the Forest Service and BLM charged $1.87 per AUM on federal land in 2017. That same year, the average cost of leasing private land to graze in 16 western states was $23.40 per head. So grazing on public land costs only 8% of the going market rate for cattle. Some argue that’s a huge government subsidy that promotes overgrazing on federal land.

Indeed, the environmental impact of cattle on public lands is contentious. Methane from cattle is a major contributor to climate change. And according to a report from the nonprofit group PEER in 2024, more than 56 million acres of BLM land fail to meet the agency’s own health standards—primarily due to cattle grazing. However, contemporary ranchers aren’t just dealing with their own grazing; many are trying to reverse decades of mismanagement to do right by the ecosystem. After all, much of our Western landscape evolved with large ungulates—bison—grazing on grass. Ultimately, some argue the picture is more nuanced than whether cows are good or bad for the land. The way cattle are grazed is key: how many, how they’re moved around, and more.

Oil, Gas, and Coal

Our public lands help power the country, but the extractive activities we conduct on them are also major contributors to climate change. One 2022 study estimated that fossil fuel production on public lands released about 1.4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere per year from 2005 to 2019.

Let’s start with oil and gas. While oil and gas drilling occurs on both Forest Service and BLM land, the BLM manages what’s known as the country’s “federal mineral estate,” which is basically the right to harvest what’s below earth’s surface. In 2023, about 7% of all the oil produced in the country, and about 8% of natural gas, came from public land. Unlike other minerals mined on federal land, the government receives 16.67% of the market value of oil and gas in royalties. In 2023, all those resources generated roughly $8.4 billion for the federal government. At the same time, that production contributes to the overall national economy as well. A report last year from the BLM found that oil and gas production on its land generated more than $200 billion annually for the U.S. economy as a whole, more than twice as much as all other activities on the agency’s 245 million acres of land combined.

Even though the overall percentage of the country’s oil and gas reserves is relatively small on public land, the scale is worth digging into: About 1.3 billion barrels of oil came from public lands in 2023. That’s just shy of what it would take to fill over 80,000 Olympic swimming pools. As of 2022, oil and gas leases covered about 23 million acres of public land. Of those, just over 12 million acres were actively producing oil. There were about 89,000 wells on 23,500 leases. Many groups have called to end oil and gas leases on federal land, and proposals like the Willow Project (Alaska’s biggest oil drilling project in decades) and drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge have garnered controversy for years.

Coal powers about 16% of our country’s electricity, and about 42% of U.S.coal production comes from federal lands. Most of that production is in Montana and Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. The BLM claims that about 570 million acres of federal land have coal development potential. In 2023, about 594 tons of coal came from federal land. That’s a huge number. But coal production has been on a downward trend since at least 2017 as the country’s overall reliance on the mineral for electricity has decreased. And things are changing fast. In 2024, the BLM announced it would no longer hold new lease sales for the Powder River Basin. However, states are suing to reverse that decision.

Renewable Energy

Public land isn’t just home to fossil fuel production—it’s also a part of the renewable energy transition. Solar, wind, geothermal, and “gen-tie” projects (which connect renewables to larger electric grids) are newer but burgeoning enterprises on public lands. In general, the BLM is in charge of these power sources, and the agency has permitted enough solar, wind, and geothermal sources combined on federal land to power nearly 13 million homes. That number is drastically higher when including gen-tie projects. Overall, there’s more renewable energy being generated on federal public lands today than at any other time in history. To see where these projects are occurring, take a look at this handy map from The Wilderness Society. Central dilemmas around renewables on public land center around scaling up wind and solar without displacing wildlife. At the same time, the federal government is looking for solutions to store energy when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing and methods to transfer electricity generated from renewables across large geographic areas.

Damn in beautiful river gorge in Washington

Hunting

All hunting in the country is regulated by the states but can occur on the vast majority of public land in the U.S. While specific parcels of federal land offer hunting limitations and prohibitions, only national parks possess a blanket ban on hunting. A relatively small proportion of outdoor recreators on public lands are also hunters. As of 2016 (the last year for which data is available), about 3.9 million people used public land to hunt. This was a relatively small percentage of the 11.5 million total hunters in the country. Since that survey, the hunting population has grown. As of 2022, there were 14.4 million hunters over the age of 16 in the U.S. Although there’s no clear data on how many of these hunters utilized federal land, it stands to reason that the number of hunters on public land has concurrently grown.

For context, the proportion of hunters over time has grown comparatively slower (in fact, basically not at all) than the overall U.S. population. This poses an interesting conundrum for funding our public lands: Through taxes on guns and ammo, hunters generate a large proportion of funding for public lands and wildlife, especially at the state level. As the proportion of hunters continues to dwindle and other uses of public lands—especially outdoor recreation—goes up, agencies and governments are determining how to meet their funding needs.

Recreation

More people are getting outside in more places than ever. In 2023, nearly 176 million Americans participated in some form of outdoor recreation—more than 57% of the country’s population. The same year, outdoor recreation as a whole contributed over $1 trillion to the U.S. economy. Numbers regarding public land specifically are a little harder to come by. The BLM estimated in a recent report that outdoor recreation generated about $11 billion annually on its land—more than all other activities except mining and oil and gas production. WE also know that visits to public land are on the increase: approximately 81 million people visited BLM land in 2023, the Forest Service estimates about 159 million visits a year, and national parks saw a whopping 325.5 million visits in 2023. That means millions of people are hiking, wildlife watching, mountain biking, trail running, backpacking, hunting, fishing, rock climbing, and rafting on public land. Economic contributions around those activities on federal public land generate tens of billions of dollars in spending per year. The rise in outdoor recreation marks a drastic shift in the use of public lands over the last few decades.

Backpacking in the Adidas Free Hiker 2.0 Mid Hiking Boots

Studies show that all this recreation has an ecological impact, especially on wildlife populations. High concentrations of hikers, climbers, and other recreationists can also lead to trash and human waste on trails and in the water supply. The science of what that impact looks like is burgeoning—stay tuned for more coverage of that issue down the line at Better Trail. As but a taste, consider that in seven of 21 popular alpine lakes tested in Montana’s Beartooth Mountains, scientists detected E. coli from human feces. According to Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the elk population in Colorado’s Roaring Fork and Eagle valleys dropped by 50% between 2000 and 2020, in part due to skyrocketing outdoor recreation. And one study from 2024, published in Current Biology, found that noise associated with outdoor recreation caused wildlife of all kinds—especially elk and black bears—to flee and decrease in population. Large group sizes had a particularly large impact. As pressures on wildlife populations all over the country mount, a central challenge ahead for federal land management agencies is dealing with this influx of visitation and recreation on public land.

What’s All This Mean for Outdoor Recreation and the Future?

Public land serves millions of outdoor recreationists every year. It’s a home for hiking, climbing, biking, floating, camping, and wildlife watching. These activities depend on large, open spaces—mostly free from the perils of civilization. For so many people, public lands are a place to separate yourself from your day job, decompress from the stress of daily life, and convene with the natural world. But these lands are alive with industry as well as wildlife. For loggers, drillers, miners, and ranchers, public lands are daily life. They fuel livelihoods, as well as—literally—a solid chunk of our society. Public land use is as messy and laden with contradictions as we all are, as its owners.

Everybody who depends on public lands—whether loggers or trail runners—is currently faced with an unsustainable reality and a similar set of questions. Wildlife habitat is more fragmented and degraded than ever before. More people are using more wild spaces. The world is warming. The pressures on public land are mounting from all angles. So how do we balance and reconcile all these competing interests in a rapidly changing world? This question will only get more complicated, nuanced, and pressing.

Hiker in distance wearing NNORMAL TOMIR 2.0 hiking shoes

In the pursuit of balance, we could weigh the economic and ecological impacts of each land-use type, the number of livelihoods that depend on them, and even the number of participants in each activity. Some activities that seem destructive to the landscape might still have some positive role on public land. Take timber, for instance: Thinning projects, especially combined with prescribed burns, can make ecosystems more resilient to wildfire. Commercial logging projects can help the underfunded U.S. Forest Service get hold of the resources it needs to get those projects done at scale.

According to the legal doctrine of multiple use, no single activity on public land is more important than any other. However, we do have a voice on what happens on federal public lands. The easiest way to speak up is through our country’s robust environmental review process. Any big project on federal land undergoes processes under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. For large projects, that review process gets packaged into something called an Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS. Smaller activities undergo a similar but less intensive process called an Environmental Assessment (EA). For your local national forest’s management plan, for large-scale logging endeavors, for so much, we have the ability to voice what we do—and don’t—approve of on federal land and why. Furthermore, we can exercise influence at the local level: Call your local Forest Service offices. Attend public meetings. Get to know your local district rangers. As partial owners of public land, you have a say in how they’re utilized.

Fundamentally, multiple use illustrates one of the most unique aspects of the country’s hundreds of millions of acres of land owned by everyone. While we’re mostly siloed according to our friend groups, media preferences, and occupations, public lands are one of the very few spaces people involved with such different industries and ideologies truly share. We’re all tasked with caring for these spaces and ensuring they thrive well into the future. In short, we’re all in it together.