WASHINGTON — Edward Norton, who has played a neo-Nazi, a card shark and a drug dealer in Hollywood movies, is taking on a new project: land conservation.

Norton, a big supporter of environmental causes, is lending his star power to bring attention to 26 million acres of national monuments, historic trails and wilderness areas that dot the West.

"Many of these special places are not protected in national parks or wildlife refuges," Norton says in a Web video featuring footage of unspoiled western vistas. "Today, these national treasures face growing threats and could be damaged forever by development, vandalism and neglect."

Those problems are expected to grow as more people move out West, causing lands that were once isolated to fall victim to vandalism, artifact theft and off-road vehicles that trample plants and other wildlife habitats.

The lands include the rugged plateaus and cliffs of the Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah; the islands, rocks and exposed reefs that hug California's coastline; and the flat playa, jagged mountains and canyons of Nevada's Black Rock Desert.

Former President Bill Clinton designated these lands as conservation areas during his last term in office. But they have not received the attention or funding they deserve, said Bruce Babbitt, the former Interior secretary who helped Clinton create the land conservation system.

"We can wind up destroying the values that brought us here in the first place," Babbitt said.

The former secretary and the actor announced creation of the National Conservation System Foundation last week to raise awareness and money in an effort to protect these lands.

The foundation's board members include former Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus; Stewart Udall, secretary of the Interior under President Lyndon Johnson; and Dayton Duncan, an award-winning writer and documentary filmmaker.

Board members say they hope to create a network of local groups that will mount an aggressive campaign to protect the lands and join with others to raise conservation money.

The new foundation comes as lawmakers are pushing to officially designate these lands for conservation, similar to the status given to national parks and wildlife refuges. That recognition would ensure a more constant source of funding that could provide more law enforcement and resources for visitors.

"These are living landscapes," foundation spokeswoman Betsy Buffington said.

President Bush has asked Congress to set aside $49.2 million for the conservation system, about $3 million less than the amount he requested last year.

The cutback concerns Matthew Ebert, who heads the Friends of Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada. Ebert calls the Black Rock Desert a "stark, empty, beautiful" place full of western history and culture.

The austere landscape remains virtually unchanged from the 19th century, when gold seekers and pioneers struggled to cross the vast desert on their western treks, he said.

Today, however, visitors have posed new risks to the landscape as off-road vehicles disturb fragile desert ecosystems, Ebert said.

"We've got to find creative ways to meet these challenges," he said, noting he plans to use the new foundation as a resource.