National park lovers can't ignore the fact that the Trump administration and some members of Congress have their eyes on public lands that could be developed. This is the west side of Lemhi Pass in Idaho, where Lewis and Clark crossed over the Continental Divide from present day Montana in 1805/BLM, Bob Wick
As a former national park ranger, the recent mass mobilization in support of our national parks has left me scared, but not for the reasons you might think.
No, I am not afraid of protests nor protesters; in fact I was recently among them myself at my former park, Rocky Mountain National Park. Yes, I still love and support national parks with every fiber of my being. And make no mistake, our national parks are under extreme threat, to a level never before witnessed in the 109-year-history of the National Park Service.
So why am I afraid you ask? I see in the public outpouring of support for parks a dangerous future beginning to form in which the current administration will provide just enough support to parks alone to placate the public and provide political cover to decimate and sell off our other public lands. That is, unless we as a park-loving public can expand the scope of our movement and come to understand the interdependencies that inherently tie the health and future of or national parks to the health and future of the entire network of federal public lands.
We are already seeing this dangerous trend actualized. National parks are the most visible and beloved of our public lands and rightly people are fired up to protect them. On March 1st, there was a nationwide day of protests at national park sites across the country. Another is planned for March 22nd. National media coverage on the mass terminations across land management agencies has focused on impacts to national parks in particular. And as a result of this well-warranted mobilization, the Trump administration has offered some concessions specific to parks. For example, following an initial wave of public outrage, the National Park Service restored the jobs of dozens of employees and approved the hiring (albeit behind schedule) of thousands of additional seasonal staff.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Land Management have been similarly decimated. The comparatively mute response regarding the impacts to these agencies has been deafening. Where has the national media coverage been? Where have the mass protests been in support of the hardworking civil servants who staff these agencies? Why does it matter?
I’ll tell you why it matters, and I’ll make it specific to national park lovers. National parks do not exist in a vacuum, and both the ecological health of our parks and your ability to enjoy them are dependent on other federal lands.
The raw, rugged beauty of Rocky Mountain National Park owes its protection in part to the surrounding national forests/Kurt Repanshek file
Take for example my former park, Rocky. Rocky is surrounded by the Arapaho, Roosevelt, and Medicine Bow-Routt national forests. Much of the visitor experience at Rocky is only possible due to the surrounding forest. Wildlife know no political boundaries and traverse freely across park and forest borders. People too traverse park and forest; one of my favorite trails, to the top of St. Vrain mountain, skirts Rocky’s southern border, weaving in and out of park and forest. When people summit Rocky’s famous 14er, Long’s Peak, they tend to assume the jaw-dropping panoramic view from the top encompasses only park land. They are wrong. The viewshed here, as with many of Rocky’s vistas, also includes forest land, which, if developed, would truly compromise Rocky’s wilderness character.
Rocky is also busy. Since my time at the park began in 2016, Rocky has seen more than 4 million visitors a year and has consistently ranked as one of the most-visited parks in the country. Managing this volume of people is a significant challenge impacting both the visitor experience and the protection of park resources. Millions per year too visit the neighboring national forests. Now, imagine if Rocky had to accommodate some significant percentage of those additional millions if access to the national forests was curtailed.
This is sadly already happening across our national forests. The New York Times obtained a recent Forest Service memo suggesting that, in California alone, almost 4,000 national forest campsites will be closed for all or part of the coming summer season due to the recent terminations and federal funding freezes.
Critically, the Forest Service is also arguably the most important agency for our nation’s ability to prevent, contain, and fight wildfire. Let me illustrate the significance to parks by way of example. In 2020, two of the most devastating fires in Colorado’s history struck the vicinity of Rocky. Many of my friends and former colleagues had to evacuate their homes. Others fared worse. The Cameron Peak and East Troublesome fires together burned roughly 400,000 acres, destroyed over a thousand structures, including housing for park employees, and took two lives. The Cameron Peak Fire alone required the services of more than 1,000 firefighters, many of whom were employed by the Forest Service. Both fires did significant damage, but were ultimately contained before ravaging enough park acreage to fundamentally change Rocky’s character.
I shudder to think what could happen to my beloved park and community if a similar fire sparks this coming summer or any future summer if we as a country do not resist the ongoing efforts to dismantle the Forest Service and its world-renowned firefighting expertise.
Similar examples of interdependencies with other federal lands and agencies exist across our National Park System.
Valley of the Gods, on BLM lands, is near Canyonlands National Park and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area/BLM, Bob Wick
Arches and Canyonlands national parks in Utah are surrounded by desert lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Many park visitors camp and recreate on these lands too, alleviating pressure on the national parks.
Yellowstone and Grand Teton, like Rocky, are surrounded by national forests. Together, these lands make up the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, one of the largest remaining nearly intact ecosystems in the Earth’s northern temperate zone. Many of the characteristic mammal species that attract people from across the country and world to these parks, like grizzly bears and wolves, utilize the full scope of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
Simply put, the national parks alone are inadequate to ensure the ecological wholeness of the region. Similarly many of the wildlife species beloved across our national parks depend on the expertise of the Fish and Wildlife Service and the wildlife refuges they manage.
Sadly, by so courageously but single-mindedly showing up for parks, we are falling for a trap. Those hellbent on dismantling our public lands intend, I believe, to continuously threaten parks, so that we the public are so preoccupied mobilizing for these most special places, that we neglect to show up for our forests, our wildlife refuges, and our open expanses managed by the Bureau of Land Management. And in so doing, they expect to force upon us their awful agenda of selling off what is ours. And make no mistake, they will eventually set their eyes on parks too if they are not stopped.
The John Jarvie Historic Ranch in Utah is on BLM lands/BLM, Bob Wick
Here is what is at stake: Politico has reported that the Trump administration plans to further decimate the Forest Service to the tune of an additional 7,000 terminations through the reduction in force plan agencies submitted in secrecy last week. Expect to see a similarly cataclysmic dismantling of the Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management, but perhaps a marginally less debilitating reduction within the National Park Service, because the current administration knows that the masses are mobilized to stand up for parks, but are largely not as knowledgeable or passionate about our other public lands agencies.
Crippling our public lands agencies by gutting their staff is the first tactical maneuver towards selling them. The administration will allow these agencies to fail by starving them of staff and resources. Then they will claim that the government, which has adequately managed these landscapes for generations, is incapable of land management. Then the wholesale of our magnificent public inheritance will begin.
This is not alarmism. Congress recently passed legislation to make it easier for the federal government to dispose of public lands, and the momentum has only picked up under Trump 2.0 and his Secretary of Interior, Doug Burgum. In his confirmation hearing, Burgum signalled that selling off public lands was on the table to pay down the national debt. For them, this is a win-win, a way to offset tax cuts for the ultra-rich without adding to the federal deficit.
Undoubtedly, first they will target the Bureau of Land Management. There is already a legal mechanism to sell off these lands, and this agency is the least publicly visible. Then, if we still do not collectively conjure the mass resistance called for, they will come for our forests and wildlife refuges. Only then, with nothing left to take and drunk off of the cannibalistic elixir of short-term tax cuts for them financed through the permanent liquidation of lands that serve us all, will they dare turn their heads towards our national parks.
And thus the time is now for national park lovers to fiercely stand up for all public lands and their dedicated stewards, lest tomorrow they come for our parks too.
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