TIME

4. Our backyard is 85 million acres

ARCHES NATIONAL PARK IN UTAH COVERS 76,679 ACRES

ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, as we once more read the stirring words of the Declaration of Independence and celebrate the creation of a nation founded on the noble principle that every person has the inalienable right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” we should also celebrate an idea born in the United States nearly a century later—a uniquely American idea, just as

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