USA: Other public lands

National parks and monuments are often surrounded by tracts of national forest , also federally administered, but much less protected. These too tend to hold appealing rural campgrounds, but in the words of the slogan each is a "Land Of Many Uses," and usually allows logging and other land-based industry - ski resorts more often than strip mines.

Other government departments administer a whole range of wildlife refuges, national scenic rivers, recreation areas and the like. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has the largest holdings of all, most of it open rangeland, such as in Nevada and Utah, but also including some enticingly out-of-the-way reaches. Environmentalists engage in endless running battles with developers, ranchers and the extracting industries over uses - or alleged misuses - of the federal lands.

State parks and state monuments , administered by individual states, preserve sites of more limited, local significance. Many are explicitly designed for recreational use, and thus hold better campgrounds than their federal equivalents.

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