The PAD-US Partnership was the oversight body for a study and design project aimed at developing the design for a a greatly improved protected areas inventory for the U.S. The Partnership was formed in late 2008 and produced the report, A Map for the Future, in July 2009. Members of the Partnership included USGS Gap Analysis Program (GAP), U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Conservation Biology Institute (CBI), The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and Land Trust Alliance. Coordination of the Partnership was provided by GreenInfo Network, with financial support from USGS GAP and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

In early May, 2010, the PAD-US Partnership suspended its operations due to funding constraints. While current federal budget challenges and the processes for budget adoption have limited the Partnership's ability to implement the full program call for in its Map for the Future report, interest in improving the data on U.S. protected areas remains strong among those involved in the Partnership and individual members are continuing their efforts to develop such data.

During the PAD-US Design Project, important progress was made in defining the technical aspects of PAD-US and in publishing an initial PAD-US version 1.0 in April 2009, through USGS GAP. This work built on efforts by CBI and GAP, each of whom had published national and state/regional protected areas data series, respectively, since the late 1990s.

From late 2009 to early 2010, efforts were made by CBI and USGS to integrate the protected area inventories of each organization, along with inventories completed by TNC and leading state data providers. These efforts led to development of important procedures and protocols that support the PAD-US strategy, but there were not sufficient resources to enable actual integration into a single database.

As a result, CBI and the USGS Gap Analysis Program are publishing complementary PAD-US Version 1.1 products to address the different needs of their partners and clients. CBI published the "PAD-US Version 1.1 (CBI edition)" of updated public and private protected area polygons across the U.S. on May 1, 2010. The USGS Gap Analysis Program also published "PAD-US Version 1.1" in May, 2010, also with significant updates to protected area inventories. USGS and CBI continue to support the creation of a single PAD-US, and will revisit this objective as additional resources become available.

All agencies and organizations involved in the PAD-US Partnership will continue their efforts to significantly improve data on protected areas in the United States. These future efforts may include collaborative projects as well as individual organizational efforts.