When most people think of America’s national parks and public lands, they picture vast landscapes like Yosemite and Yellowstone. But across battlefields, monuments, historic sites, and cultural landscapes, these places also hold the stories of who we are.

For generations, historians, Tribal Nations, descendants, Department of Interior staffers,, scholars, and communities have worked to recover overlooked histories and bring them into public view. Their work has transformed the stories encountered by millions of people through exhibits, signs, films, ranger programs, and the landscapes themselves.

Now, as the federal government moves to reshape the history told in these places, some of those hard-fought stories have already disappeared from public view, while others face the possibility of being erased again.

The Inheritance follows the people working to document, preserve, and defend what could be lost, and further explores the lesser-known histories of our shared public lands. Moving from national parks and historic sites to the communities beyond their boundaries, the film traces a struggle over more than what appears on a sign or inside an exhibit. It asks who has the power to shape our shared memory, whose stories become part of the American story, and ultimately:

What will the next generation inherit?