Fifty years ago, on October 2, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed North Cascades National Park into law. In certain ways, today looks a lot like 1968. American society is struggling with cultural, racial, gender, and class divides. An unpopular president sits in the White House. And public support for the environment is strong.

There are simple ways to fight incoming threats to the land. For example, utilize the parks and monuments to prove their value, treat them with care to extend their life, and refuse to support parties that ignore issues such as environmental degradation. It is critical that we our protect national parks and monuments against threats of political interference, big-oil targeting, and global climate change so that we can continue to enjoy them and the services they provide.

In a 1973 TV spot, the United States Forest Service sage Smokey Bear admonished that “one careless second with a match and America the beautiful becomes America the ugly.” So what would Smokey say now when a few careless seconds with a pen allowed President Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to remove protections from two million acres of precious American wilderness? If courts uphold Trump’s executive orders of last December, they would reduce southern Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments by 85 and 46 percent, respectively, constituting the biggest rollback of federally protected land in American history.

More and more people are visiting our national parks, and some parks are not just busy but getting overwhelmed and overcrowded. Meanwhile, the prospect of more money being budgeted for more staff is unlikely. Consequently, many parks should begin considering using volunteers, and those that do….should consider using more volunteers and using volunteers in more meaningful ways.