Department of the Interior

As the nation's principal conserva­tion agency, the Department of the Interior is responsible for most of the federally owned public lands and natural resources in the United States. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service administers 500 wildlife refuges, 37 wetland management dis­tricts, 65 national fish hatcheries, and a network of wildlife law en­forcement agents. The National Park Service administers more than 370 national parks and monuments, sce­nic parkways, riverways, seashores, recreation areas, and historic sites, through which it preserves America's natural and cultural heritage.

Through the Bureau of Land Man­agement, the department oversees the land and resources—from rangeland vegetation and recreation areas to timber and oil production—of millions of hectares of public land located primarily in the West. The Bureau of Reclamation manages scarce water resources in the semiarid western United States. The department regulates mining in the United States, assesses mineral re­sources, and has major responsibility for protecting and conserving the trust resources of American Indian and Alaska Native tribes. Inter­nationally, the department coordi­nates federal policy in the territories of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands, and oversees fund­ing for development in the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau.