Recent events (funding pauses/staff reductions/office closures/visitor center cutbacks, etc) have me worried about our National Parks. Some of the best times of my life have been spent in these places and now it seems as if they are under attack. Beyond calling my representatives or showing up at a park demonstration to show my support I’m not sure what else can be done. Anyone else concerned about what lies ahead for America’s Best Idea?
I am a Federalist and feel that 90% of what the Feds do should be left up to the states. Within the 10% of what the Feds should be doing is running our National Park Service. If we lose these parks as they are sold off to frackers et al. we will realize way too late we F’ed up. Any family that visits us up here in Northern Colorado falls in love with RMNP. I remember how awesome it was that growing up my family spent a week in Bryce and Zion.
I think they’ll deteoriate like everything else, and probably get sold to developers for pennies on the dollar and privatized into theme parks sooner or later 
I have friends in the National Parks Service and Forest Service (which also handles a lot of recreation) and it’s just chaos and layoffs and fear everywhere.
They were already under-resourced and over-loved before, especially the popular ones, and I have no idea how they’ll survive the next few years. I don’t think there are any remaining checks or balances left in the federal government, so the Republicans have free rein to do whatever they want with anything they want. Probably plenty of valuable timber / minerals / oil & gas in those parks…
Better visit and enjoy them while you still can…
Tbh I’m less worried about specifically national parks than in other areas of government. Unlike federal lands generally I don’t think there is too much opportunity to just flat out give land away to Trump’s cronies, or allow mining, logging etc. So it will suck, but it can be corrected (I think, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve put too much faith in the checks and balances stopping an executive branch acting in bad faith )
I’m more than a bit worried. My husband retired at the beginning of the year, and wants to travel. He bought a used camper and has been fixing it up. I don’t want to rain on his parade, but I really think we ought to hit the road while we still can! It’s not just the destruction of the parks, but the destruction of various systems that might see us trapped at home, trying to mitigate the damage. I don’t think he gets the urgency.
It’s like someone saw a clip from Parks & Rec and didn’t realize that Ron Swanson was intended as a parody of corporo-capitalism.
I had a number of NPS employees in my original WFR certification class (who were there on their own dime because apparently Parks doesn’t compensate vocational education…WTF?) and they were all very dedicated and passionate people. Fucking over the Parks isn’t the kind of absolute disaster that attacking NOAA, dismantling Education, or attacking the entire national intelligence and counterterrorism establishment is, but it is an absolutely travesty given how little it costs to run the National Parks Service and the stunning array of the American landscape it protects and access it provides to the public for low cost or free. There is no reason to go mining out the Grand Canyon or the Utah Big Five just to get such low grade uranium that it will never be cost effective for commercial use.
Stupid, venal, corrupt motherfuckers attacking NPS and NFS for no other reason than that they can.
Stranger
Anybody know how much the National Parks pull in in terms of tourism dollars, especially foreign tourists? Any time I go to a National Park there are a lot of of foreign tourists, and any time I talk to a local when I am traveling abroad and ask if they’ve been to the US they invariably mention what National Parks they have visited or want to visit.
These so-called “businessmen” calling the shots are just fucking morons who seem to have no idea of the short and long term returns provided by Federal spending.
Message to park visitors: “Bring your own toilet paper”…
Trump admin imposes $1 credit card limit on National Park Service employees
Now they are just fucking with people. Real professional.
The only returns they care about are returns to them, not the public. Which is bog standard corporate or tycoon thinking.
They will reap vast returns. Those’re the only ones that matter. To them. And they’re the only people who matter. To them.
I will amend my statement:
The supporters of these so-called “businessmen” calling the shots are just fucking morons who seem to have no idea of the short and long term returns provided by Federal spending.
I’ve said it a lot of ways over 20+ years here, but when ordinary people think of themselves only as consumers and never as citizens, societal doom is not far away.
Contributing to the issue is that trump has never visited nature beyond a golf course. Jr has to kill shit, but not trump.
The president as well as trump will screw the national parks. These will be clear cut to make wood chips to sell as mulch to China, and anything else of value that can be extracted by a broligarch.
Like we do every year, I’ve been entering the lotteries for backcountry permits in several NPs (submitted to three already with one more to go in a couple of weeks). Will recreation.gov actually work in a few weeks? Assuming it does and you get a permit, will the ranger stations be open to pick up the permits? Will these amazing trails and limited backcountry camp sites be overrun because there are no rangers to monitor?
I’m apprehensive. The Parks need more money, more attention paid to managing visitors. And climate change is doing nothing positive for our ability to maintain what we’ve got.
I’m not traveling much right now, but I feel fortunate that we visited the Smokies last spring (before Helene).
I have a feeling that will be the case this summer. The one wilderness area nearby is on a quota system and there will be some, like me, who go ahead and abide by the rules, and others who will take advantage of the lack of oversight and enforcement to pile into sensitive areas. I guess this summer I will bring extra trash bags and a picker on my hikes.
Heads up for those planning on visiting Carlsbad Caverns in the near future: 14 staff members have been laid off, resulting of cancellation of ranger-led tours.
I don’t understand why some of you seem to think these National Park Service positions are NOT jobs that could be better and more cheaply done by, say, Blackwater, Raytheon, or Halliburton?
/s