There are 21 protected areas of the United States designated as national preserves. They were established by an act of Congress to protect areas that have resources often associated with national parks but where certain natural resource-extractive activities such as hunting and mining may be permitted, provided their natural values are preserved.[1][2][3] The activities permitted in each national preserve vary depending on the enabling legislation of the unit.[4] All national preserves are managed by the National Park Service (NPS) as part of the National Park System.
Eleven national preserves are co-managed with national parks or national monuments; because hunting is forbidden in those units, preserves provide a similar level of protection from development but allow hunting and in some cases grazing. Nine of those are counted as separate official units, while New River Gorge National Park and Preserve and Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve are each single units, though there is no administrative difference. The remaining ten are stand-alone units. Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve has a preserve site that is managed like one, but is not distinguished as a national preserve in the authorizing legislation and is not listed here. The Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve is a unique designation that is dissimilar to national preserves.
National preserves are located in eleven states; Alaska is home to ten of them, including the largest, Noatak National Preserve. Their total area is 24,651,566 acres (99,761 km2), 86% of which is in Alaska. All national preserves except Tallgrass Prairie permit hunting in accordance with local regulations.[5] A national preserve differs from a national reserve as management of reserves can be delegated to the state in which they are located.[6]
^"Designations of National Park System Units". National Park Service. Archived from the original on March 18, 2021. Retrieved March 29, 2021.
^Mackintosh, Barry (2005). The National Parks: Shaping the System. U.S. Department of the Interior. pp. 75–95. ISBN 978-0-912627-73-1. Archived from the original on April 21, 2021. Retrieved April 1, 2021.
^Cite error: The named reference Index2012-2016 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^16 USC 3201 – Administration of national preserves Archived December 22, 2017, at the Wayback Machine Retrieved October 4, 2021. Legal Information Institute.
^"Here's Where You Can Hunt And Trap In The National Park System". National Parks Traveler. July 14, 2020. Archived from the original on November 1, 2020. Retrieved December 12, 2020.
^"What's In a Name? Discover National Park System Designations". National Park Service. Archived from the original on October 27, 2018. Retrieved October 26, 2018.
designated as nationalpreserves. They were established by an act of Congress to protect areas that have resources often associated with national parks but...
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Little River Canyon NationalPreserve is a United States NationalPreserve located on top of Lookout Mountain near Fort Payne, Alabama, and DeSoto State...
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or "Piney Woods" of the Southeast US. The National Park Service established the Big Thicket NationalPreserve (BTNP) within the region in 1974 and it is...
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Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve is a U.S. National Monument and NationalPreserve, consisting of the region around the Aniakchak volcano on the...
NationalPreserve and Big Thicket NationalPreserve were created in 1974 as the first nationalpreserves. National reserves are similar to national preserves...
northwest-southeasterly direction. The Devil's Playground is a part of the Mojave NationalPreserve and is between the town of Baker, California and Providence Mountains...
same name applies to a national park and an adjacent nationalpreserve. Yet Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve is counted as one unit...
Thicket NationalPreserve, Texas : Map" (PODF). Nps.gov. Retrieved 2015-03-12. "The Big Thicket - Big Thicket NationalPreserve (U.S. National Park Service)"...
Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve is a protected area in the northern Siskiyou Mountains of southwestern Oregon in the United States. The 4,554-acre...
forests. Its range includes the Big Cypress NationalPreserve, Everglades National Park, Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, Picayune Strand State Forest...
same name applies to a national park and an adjacent nationalpreserve. Yet Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve is counted as one unit...
Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve (French: Parc historique national et réserve Jean Lafitte) protects the natural and cultural resources...
Peninsula, where it is referred to as Khersones. The site is part of the NationalPreserve of Tauric Chersonesos. The name Chersonesos in Greek means "peninsula"...
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