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.

Interior Secretary Zinke has described himself as a “Theodore Roosevelt” Republican and pledged to make park issues a focus of his tenure, including tackling the National Park Service’s more than $11.3 billion maintenance backlog and keeping park rangers on the job. But is he living up to these promises?

Contributing writer and photographer Rebecca Latson explains her view on why the National Parks Traveler is so important, why she believes in the Traveler, and why you should believe in the Traveler, too.