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Forest Service, the National Park Service, the U.S.
The largest owners of public land at the federal level are the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. 1 The other 60 percent is managed by private owners under a variety of federal, state, and local laws. Approximately 40 percent of the nation is owned or managed by public agencies. Responsibilities may include protecting resources associated with land (e.g., timber, minerals) and/or land uses (e.g., wilderness designations, regulatory controls). Numerous agencies and individuals have responsibilities for managing and protecting land in the U.S. The complex responsibilities of land management underscore the challenges of collecting data and assessing trends on the state of land. While human activities on land (including food and fiber production, land development, manufacturing, and resource extraction) provide multiple economic, social, and environmental benefits to communities, they can also involve the creation, use, or release of chemicals and pollutants that can affect the environment and human health.ĮPA works with other federal agencies, states, and partners to protect land resources, ecosystems, environmental processes, and uses of land through regulation of chemicals, waste, and pollutants, and through cleanup and restoration of contaminated lands. The use of land, what is applied to or released on it, and its condition change constantly: there are changes in the types and amounts of resources that are extracted, the distribution and nature of land cover types, the amounts and types of chemicals used and wastes managed, and perceptions of the land's value. Land, and the ecosystems it is part of, provide services such as trapping chemicals as they move through soil, storing and breaking down chemicals and wastes, and filtering and storing water.
Land supports residential, industrial, commercial, transportation, and other uses.Land produces renewable resources and commodities including livestock, vegetables, fruit, grain, and timber.
Land is the source of most extractable resources, such as minerals and petroleum. Pest Control and Pesticide Safety for Consumers. Land, Oil Spill, and Waste Management Research.