Mike Fitzgerald stands within a vanished world, his work boots crunching loose white gravel as he sidesteps fossil remains along a path teeming with petroglyphs. Amiable and lanky, he is a cowboy by birth. But recently, he has become an impromptu tour guide, hauling visitors to the primordial treasures strewn across his Twin Buttes Ranch in northern Arizona.

Fitzgerald doesn't relish his new role. But he's revealing this hidden world to outsiders in the hopes that they'll persuade Congress to protect it. Still, he isn't holding his breath. Today, he's among several ranchers waiting to transfer property to the adjacent Petrified Forest National Park.

Those ranchers thought they already had a deal back in 2004, when Congress authorized a 125,000-acre expansion of the park, more than doubling its size to 225,000 acres. Along with petroglyphs and other artifacts from the Triassic period, the new boundary would enhance a wilderness area and enclose a globally significant fossil repository called the Chinle Escarpment. Stretching along six miles of parkland (and extending as far as Utah), the huge formation contains remains dating back 220 million years, from crocodile-like phytosaurs to armored, plant-eating aetosaurs.

But that authorization was just the first step. The next step--getting the funding or "appropriations" to make the actual purchase--is proving an even bigger challenge. And the hold-up threatens to unravel pending deals with these willing sellers.

"I don't think I can hold out much longer," says Fitzgerald, who quit the cattle business in 2002 after his herd was devastated by steady drought. Now he needs money, and if it doesn't come from Congress, it could just as easily come from real estate speculators eager to snatch this ranchland bordering a national park. "We have these natural resources out here, and the federal government says they want it," he says. "So why don't they buy it?"

Therein lies a very complex question, one steeped in politics and federal budget restraints. Still, it's hardly a new one, according to David Brooks, senior Democratic counsel for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Amid high hopes, Brooks helped draft Petrified Forest's expansion legislation. Now, like everyone else, he's waiting for it to be funded. "It's not uncommon for acquisitions to lag several years behind the authorization," says Brooks. But that lag time has grown even longer in recent years, as a conservative Congress has proven to be quite stingy with expansion funds.

Brooks blames powerful appropriations committee chairs who were philosophically opposed to federal land acquisition. Although he predicts opposition to soften as Congress shifts to Democratic control, he doesn't expect acquisition funds to simply start flowing. "The budget numbers set the parameters for how much money is available for park boundaries," he says. "And those numbers are pretty tight."

And Petrified Forest is not alone. Around the nation, many park superintendents are eyeing land they consider critical for preservation. It ranges from key wildlife habitat within southern Arizona's Saguaro National Park to historic battlefields at Gettysburg National Military Park threatened by adjacent development (see sidebar below).

Much of the challenge arises from Congress's failure to follow through on a promise made more than 40 years ago. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation creating the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which was to set aside up to $450 million annually to fund land acquisition for the federal agencies including the Park Service and Forest Service using revenue generated primarily from off-shore oil and gas drilling. But Congress often chooses to spend that money elsewhere. In recent years, the amount allocated to purchase national park lands has fallen from $125 million in 2001 to $31 million in 2006. The legislative boundaries of national parks now include 1.8 million acres of privately owned land valued at approximately $1.9 billion.

Valley Forge National Historical Park in Pennsylvania was one of the fortunate ones. In 2004, NPCA led an advocacy campaign prompting 300 activists to protest a developer's plan for luxury homes on private land within the park; soon after, Congress allocated $7.5 million to purchase the property.

The properties neighboring Petrified Forest aren't at risk of imminent development, but artifacts, petrified wood, and other national treasures just beyond park boundaries remain at risk. "There are individuals who show up with backhoes, and dig the heck out of the land," says Petrified Forest Superintendent Lee Baiza. "We fly the boundary twice a year, but if degradation is occurring on private property, we don't have leeway to do much about it."

And so this park with permission to grow--but not the money that growth requires--is forced to bide its time. It's difficult to estimate when Congress might appropriate the funds to the National Park Service, though Petrified Forest boasts good friends in high places: In October 2006, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) sent Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne a letter requesting $4 million for the park's expansion. But there are no guarantees that the money will find its way into the 2008 budget.

And even if it does, $4 million is only a drop in the bucket compared with the total expansion costs, estimated at $15 to $25 million. Clearly, the acquisitions will be piecemeal. Since the expansion was approved, speculators have busily begun subdividing some smaller parcels. For the Park Service, that means cutting deals with an ever-growing number of landowners. "One property has been subdivided from 40 acres down to 2.5-acre parcels over the last year-and-a-half," says Baiza, adding that several properties have even been placed for bid on eBay. Amidst the rush of activity, simply estimating the value of the land becomes a nearly impossible task.

"The appraisal process is a critical factor in conservation purchases like these, and it can be incredibly complicated," says Dave Nimkin, NPCA's Southwest Regional director. "The question is, do you estimate the land's value as raw land? Is it the value as a natural resource? As an archaeological treasure? Or the value if the land were to be developed? I don't know the answer--that's the dilemma that has turned this process into a nightmare for willing sellers."

Indeed, the day Congress authorizes a park expansion, the land is immediately less attractive to other potential buyers, though speculators might snatch it up with hopes of turning a quick profit or exchanging the land for government property closer to an urban area. But ranchers who want to sell to the government quickly find its appraisal process doesn't generally account for the land's archaeological significance. So although people like Mike Fitzgerald clearly want to do the right thing, they often get caught in the middle.

Scott Higginson just wants to see the resources protected from thieves and vandals. Higginson is executive vice president for NZ Legacy, a company that owns property designated for the expansion, and he's been negotiating with BLM for a 7,700-acre exchange. "Our objective is button it up, slam it shut, and get it to the federal government as quickly as we can," he says.

But less scrupulous landowners aren't so concerned about protecting those precious fossils and cultural remains. "There's been a considerable amount of archaeological pilfering and illegal collecting on private and public land next to the park," says Dr. David Gillette, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff. Gillette has spent decades conducting research at Petrified Forest, and he says a price tag can't be placed on such destruction. "Those rocks contain fossils that record the time when all modern terrestrial ecosystems originated. The Chinle formation itself has global significance."

Those resources provide not only a learning tool for visitors, but an invaluable, open-air classroom. "I'm a big advocate for this expansion," he says. "This area could be an important tool for educating and training the next generation of scientists." (In fact, Gilette has testified before Congress and penned an essay for National Parks magazine to that effect five years ago.)

Back at Twin Buttes Ranch, Mike Fitzgerald knows he's taking a risk just by publicizing such treasures. He's already chased looters off his land more than once, and the years of delays just leave him more concerned and more perplexed. "Everybody is in favor of the expansion," he says. "So why won't Congress put in the money?" He pauses, reaching down for a dinosaur bone. "We're not trying to take advantage of the situation," he says. "We're only asking what the land is worth."