The Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit is a U.S. Forest Service organization that manages public forest lands around Lake Tahoe and across its watershed in the Sierra Nevada on the California-Nevada border. Created in 1973 by combining basin lands from the Tahoe, Eldorado, and Toiyabe national forests, it was designed to oversee the basin as one interdependent system. Earlier federal protection began in 1899 with the Lake Tahoe Forest Reserve. Though small by national forest standards, it manages 78 percent of the basin’s lands and focuses on conservation, restoration, habitat, fire management, urban forest parcels, and recreation infrastructure through science-based partnerships.