The North Carolina Natural Heritage Program's Managed Areas are primarily a collection of fee simple properties and easements where natural resource conservation is one of the primary management goals. It does include a number of properties and easements that are not primarily managed for conservation, but that are of conservation interest. This conservation interest ranges from properties and easements which support rare species and intact, high-quality natural communities to those that are open spaces in places where open space is scarce. Lands that are Dedicated Nature Preserves or Registered Heritage Areas are found in this data set. These data are the current equivalent of the Conservation Tax Credit Properties and Land Trust Conservation Properties data set and the Federal Lands in North Carolina data set.

Inclusion of a Managed Area in this shapefile in no way implies that the area is open to the public. Some Managed Areas are on private land and are not open to the public; written permission should be obtained from all appropriate landowners before visiting any of these sites.