Why does data about my land trust’s holdings not show up in the Protected Areas map theme?
Spatial data for most land trust holdings, including conservation easements, are not readily available at a national level, and are available at state level for only a few states. As a result, maps of protected areas tend to show publicly-owned lands while under-representing the impact of private land conservation. Also, many land trusts do not publicly share data about easements in order to protect landowner privacy. We respect this concern and will only provide data that has been made publicly available or has been voluntarily contributed to our effort. While we have relied on the best sources currently available, we hope that LandScope America can be a catalyst for improving the collection of data about privately protected lands across the U.S. To that end, we are collaborating with the Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) effort.
