This Land Is Your Land is our series on an American birthright at risk amid privatization, energy extraction and climate change

Public lands are an American birthright like no other. Managed by the government and held in trust for the people, they range from celebrated national parks such as Yosemite, Yellowstone and the Everglades to vast western forests and deserts, Pacific coral reefs and Atlantic seamounts. Yet now their future hangs in the balance.

This is why we are delighted to announce a major expansion of our series This Land is Your Land, which will provide coverage of these unique and threatened places.

Rotting cabins, closed trails: why we're shining a light on US national parks Read more

The inspiration for this project came from you, our readers. Our first stories on public lands were shared widely and drew thousands of passionate comments. We then launched a crowdfunding appeal in mid-2017 to expand our coverage, raising $114,302. Now, This Land is Your Land is funded for an additional two years thanks to a new grant to theguardian.org from the Society of Environmental Journalists.

More on this in a moment. First, we invite you to sign up to our monthly public lands newsletter: