We've made America's public lands our life's work.

More Than Just Parks is the independent authority on the country's public lands, trusted by the people who manage them and the people fighting to keep them.

Photo · More Than Just Parks

More Than Just Parks exists to protect America's public lands. These forests and deserts, canyons and coastlines belong to every American in common, and they face relentless pressure from the industries and officials who'd rather see them carved up and handed off. We document these places and investigate the forces working to take them, and we give the people who own them what they need to fight back.

Who we are

Jim Pattiz and Will Pattiz, known collectively as the Pattiz Brothers, are the duo behind More Than Just Parks. They've spent their entire adult lives traveling across America's public lands helping tell their stories. They came to this work as filmmakers, documenting the country's parks and forests for the agencies that manage them, and spent years in the field learning these places and the people who run them from the inside. That experience is what More Than Just Parks runs on today. What started in film has become an independent public lands publication and intelligence operation, with original reporting on what's happening to these lands and the tools built for the people working to defend them.

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The work

Investigative Journalism

We publish original reporting on what's happening to America's public lands and who's responsible for it almost every day, the kind of coverage that doesn't exist anywhere else. We follow the appointees brought in to hollow out the agencies they're sworn to run and the industry money moving through a permitting process built to look boring. More than 27,000 readers depend on it, including the staff of the country's largest conservation organizations and the offices on Capitol Hill making the decisions we cover. We're funded entirely by our readers and take no money from the industries we cover, which is the only reason we can report on them the way we do.

Read the reporting

Public Lands Intelligence

We built the tools the field was missing. The Threatened Public Lands Map tracks more than a hundred active threats to federal land, each documented with what's at stake and who's responsible. The Congressional Public Lands Scorecard grades every member of Congress on the votes that decide the fate of public land rather than the speeches about it. Together they anchor a broader intelligence platform built for the institutions that defend public land and need to see what's coming before it surfaces in the news.

View the Threat Map See the Scorecard

Documentary Film

Film is where the work began and it remains central to what we do. Our documentaries have reached tens of millions of viewers and put America's public lands in front of audiences who'd never have gone looking for them.

Watch the films

Work with us

We take on a limited amount of outside work each year, and we're always glad to hear from people who care about these places as much as we do.

Speaking

We speak to conferences, universities, and organizations across the country about America's public lands and the forces shaping their future.

Book us to speak

Press & interviews

Reporters and producers can reach us for commentary, background, and on-the-record interviews on public lands and conservation.

Reach the desk

Institutional intelligence

We're building a public lands intelligence platform for conservation groups, law firms, and advocacy organizations. Request early access at ask@morethanjustparks.com.

Request early access

Film & creative partnerships

We continue to produce original films and partner with agencies, brands, and tourism offices.

Start a conversation

Reach us anytime at ask@morethanjustparks.com.

America's public lands belong to all of us, equally and without exception. They're the last places where the country still holds something in common, where a person from anywhere can walk into a forest older than the republic and feel, without being told, that they own a share of something vast and unbought. We were handed these lands by people we'll never meet, and we'll hand them to people who'll never know our names. Caring for them in between is the whole point. That's the work we do here, and we'd be glad to have you with us.