United States/Public lands/Forest Service

Replace proclamation boundaries

All national forests have a "proclamation boundary," a boundary established by the federal government delineating areas that can be acquired by the Forest Service. Within these boundaries, national forest lands are often interspersed with non-Forest Service land. These lands are outside the control of the Forest Service and therefore are not actually part of the national forest.^[2] Despite this, many national forests in OSM are mapped with their proclamation boundaries, showing vast swaths of private land as part of the protected area.

Proclamation boundaries should be replaced with ownership boundaries, which show only Forest Service-owned land. The ownership boundary dataset is found at the USFS geodata site; the easiest one to work with is called "PADUS FS Managed Surface Ownership Parcels."

Standardize tagging

National forests and their sub-areas should have these basic tags, which are also described on United States/Public lands:

• ownership=national
• type=boundary
• boundary=protected_area
• protected=perpetuity
• operator=United States Forest Service
• name=*
• access=* or more specific tags like motor_vehicle=*
• fee=*, whether a fee is charged for entry.
• website=*
• wikipedia=*
• wikidata=*

In addition to the previous, use this table:

One boundary per forest

In OSM, some national forests are separated into multiple features. For example, George Washington and Jefferson National Forests are represented by many different relations. Following the principle of "one feature, one OSM element," these features need to be combined into one boundary relation per national forest or grassland.

Wilderness Areas are part of national forests, not separate entities

Some national forests' Wilderness Areas and National Recreation Areas are mapped as inner members or are otherwise cut out of the national forest boundary. This is incorrect: these areas are legally within the boundaries of their national forest. There are a few notable exceptions, such as Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area, which is operated by the Forest Service but is not within a national forest.