# Conserve and use

Explainer · Updated 2026-09-07 · Second in the reading path  
Canonical: https://preserveourland.org/articles/conserve-and-use/

American public-land law has long assumed that some estates can serve more than one purpose. The phrase in current use is *multiple use*: outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, wildlife and fish, and — on the lands where the statute reaches — mineral development, held together so that no single use is supposed to erase the others.

**Two statutes, two agencies, same idea.** The Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960 directs the national forests. The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA) directs the Bureau of Land Management toward multiple use and sustained yield. This desk names those texts. It will not invent harvest volumes, animal-unit months, or visitor counts.

## What the tradition is trying to hold

Conserve-and-use is a middle path. It is not “use until nothing remains,” and it is not “withdraw everything from the working map.” Sustained yield is the second half of the pair: take what the land can replace.

Other statutes draw brighter lines. The Wilderness Act of 1964 withdraws designated wilderness from mechanized use and commercial harvest. The National Park Service Organic Act of 1916 charges parks with conservation and public enjoyment together — a different balance than a working forest. Those tools exist. They are not the only tools.

## What this page will not do

- It will not treat every mineral lease, timber sale, or grazing permit as a scandal.
- It will not treat every withdrawal as a betrayal. See [what stewardship means](https://preserveourland.org/articles/what-stewardship-means/).
- It will not invent a percentage of the federal estate that is “locked up” or “open.”

Energy geography: [oilroutes.org](https://oilroutes.org). County facts: [uscountydata.org](https://uscountydata.org). Federal outlays: [govspending.org](https://govspending.org).

Next: [how American land is held](https://preserveourland.org/articles/how-land-is-held/).