The
protected areas of the United States are managed by an array of different federal, state, tribal and local level authorities and receive widely varying levels of protection. Some areas are managed as
wilderness, while others are operated with acceptable
commercial exploitation. , the 25,800
protected areas covered , or 14 percent of the land area of the
United States. This is also one-tenth of the protected land area of the world. The U.S. also had a total of 787
National Marine Protected Areas, covering an additional , or 12 percent of the total marine area of the United States.