ST. GEORGE — There are nearly 16 million acres of “landlocked” federal and state lands across 13 Western states but how much public land is inaccessible to Southern Utahns?

Parcels become landlocked when federal or state lands are inaccessible to the public because they are surrounded by private land with no roads or trails allowing people to reach them, according to OnX’s webpage.

OnX, which offers map applications for outdoor enthusiasts, partnered with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership “to determine the scope of the landlocked problem and propose solutions for unlocking public lands,” according to the partnership’s website.

They found that 15.87 million acres are landlocked in the Western United States, including 6.35 million acres of state land and 9.52 acres of federal land stewarded by the Bureau of Land Management, the United States Forest Service, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and others.

“They belong to all of us, but you can’t get to them without permission from a private landowner,” the site reads. “In addition to island-like isolated parcels that are entirely surrounded by private holdings, the West’s unique history has created many checkerboard public lands where “corner crossing” is not considered a legal form of access from parcel to parcel – even where they are steps apart.”

There are 380,000 landlocked acres in Utah, including 264,000 federal lands and 116,000 state lands, said Joel Webster, vice president of Western Conservation at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.

Lisa Nichols, an access advocacy manager at OnX, said there are 25,000 landlocked acres in Southern Utah, located in Beaver, Iron, Washington, Garfield, Kane and San Juan counties.

Approximately 71% of Utah, about 38,578,390 acres, is public land, according to Utah’s Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office.

There are 858,457 landlocked acres of federal and state land within 200 straight-line miles of Cedar City and St. George, including parcels in Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California, Nichols said. In cases where a parcel is within 200 miles of both cities, it was only counted once.

Nichols said 93% of those acres are in Arizona, 6% are in Utah and less than 1% are in Nevada and California.

Information concerning the location of these properties is not publically available out of respect for the landowners’ privacy, Nichols said. It only is shared with nonprofit and government agencies according to their data release agreements.

“For these groups that are working on improving access to particular areas, we release the data to those organizations to help their efforts,” she said.

The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership is a national conservation organization that works to “guarantee all Americans quality spaces to hunt and fish” and enhance access to both public and private lands and unlock public lands that are difficult or impossible to get to, Webster said.

Public spaces started becoming landlocked over 100 years ago in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Webster said and added that many people gained access to large swaths of land via 1862’s Homestead Act where the federal government was “actively disposing of land.

Additionally, railroad companies were granted federal land to build tracks and encourage westward expansion, which was “a big issue in Utah,” Webster said. These parcels were planned in a checkerboard pattern with alternating sections on either side of the tracks.

As a result, this checkerboard pattern could be found across the state as, at the time, “access wasn’t a consideration,” and “people just went where they wanted,” Webster said. The westward settlement resulted from federal lands being converted to private lands and much of what was left behind is now stewarded by the Bureau of Land Management.

“There was not really a strategy on what lands are going to be BLM lands; they were really just the lands that never got settled,” he said.

Over time perceptions about private property and access to land evolved with society. The issue hasn’t gotten worse in recent years but the public has become more aware of it, he added.

“Historically, people have used paper maps to recreate and access their public lands,” he said. “And with a paper map, you’re looking for trailheads and landmarks to help you identify the signage, to help you identify where you are.”

Awareness became possible with the advent of smartphone applications, GPS and online maps where information can be compiled, Webster said. Because hikers have access to GPS and can gain information about property boundaries, they are also able to “look beyond” and see areas of public land that are not accessible.

Accessing landlocked lands

There are various ways to make landlocked lands more accessible, Webster said. For instance, Walk-in Access programs allow private property owners to open access to the public.

The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources can work with private landowners to lease “certain hunting, trapping or fishing privileges.” Those interested in recreating in these areas can learn more at the DWR’s website.

Federal agencies. like the BLM and the United State Forest Service, can buy access easements to build roads or trails across private land to provide passage to landlocked public lands, Webster said. Additionally, they can make lands accessible via land exchanges when it is in the public’s interest.

“This is not something people were really working on until the last decade and I think it’s going to be like – this is a long haul issue that needs to be addressed working with one landowner at a time,” he said adding that the issue won’t be resolved by “picking fights with landowners.”

“It’s really important that the public and outdoor enthusiasts try to roll up their sleeves with landowners and decision-makers to find constructive solutions to this issue,” he said. “Because ultimately, it’s gonna take all of us to solve it.”

Impacts of landlocked lands

From a recreation perspective, Webster said the lands in question are owned by the public and would otherwise be accessible.

Additionally, he said “recreation is big business” and local communities that rely on a strong outdoor economy could benefit from these lands which may currently be considered “lost opportunities.”

The greatest impact on conservation is the potential inability of stewarding agencies to manage landlocked lands that are difficult or impossible to access. Although, in many cases, these stewards work with landowners to forge agreements and gain access for this purpose.

“But there’s going be other parcels where they that they’re just not granted that permission – it’s tricky for them,” he said. “I’m sure it’s situational.”

However, some might argue that landlocked lands benefit conservation efforts as they don’t experience the public pressure that other spaces do, Webster said.

“(But) that’s why we have management plans that can manage recreation and make sure that it’s those multiple uses are allowed in concert with other multiple uses, like fish and wildlife habitat, so we shouldn’t shut areas off,” he said. “What we need to do is recognize and manage the different uses.”

How to get involved

Since the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act passed in 2019, federal agencies have been required to keep a priority list of inaccessible or difficult-to-access lands that they are working to open for public access, Webster said.

The priority list is updated biennially, and the public is able to submit nominations, according to the BLM’s website. The second round closed on June 30 and the next round of nominations is expected to open in 2024.

“The public’s (2020) response was robust, demonstrating a significant level of interest and high importance that the public, state agencies, and non-governmental partners assign to the issue of improving recreational access to public lands across the West,” the site states.

Landowners interested in providing public access to difficult-to-access or landlocked lands can send Nichols an email to learn more about the process.

To learn more about efforts to increase access to landlocked lands, view the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership’s website or OnX’s website.

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