America’s National Parks Are Under Threat: How Natural Treasures Are Being Dismantled
- Kate Blodig
- 58 minutes ago
- 5 min read
“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity.” — John Muir
America’s National Parks, known as one of America’s greatest ideas, are home to stunning, untouchable sanctuaries of natural beauty and diversity. The National Park Service was created by Congress in 1916 to protect these cherished lands. For over a century, our country has protected the parks because they help make America beautiful and there is a legitimate need for their conservation. They need to be protected and for the 300+ million people who visit them every year, these natural and cultural sites inform our understanding of the past and shed light on our future. So many people find peace and comfort within the parks; they provide us a way to get away from reality and enjoy the beauty of nature. We have spent over a century committing to and supporting our national parks, but now, the parks are in peril. The parks we know and love are being dismantled right before our very eyes.
What Is Happening to Our National Parks?
Our National Parks are facing challenge upon challenge after Trump was signed into office this year. On February 14, 2025, 1,000 National Park Service permanent workers were fired as a part of a waste-cutting effort led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s White House team, which he calls the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. This decision was the second park-related cut by the Trump Administration after thousands of seasonal park workers were told they wouldn’t be hired this year. The parks have struggled with underfunding and a shortage of staff in the past, so these lay-offs and hiring freezes have exacerbated the problem. Many national parks are facing reduced services, longer wait times, closed facilities, and adjusted hours. With fewer rangers and staff in the parks, there is an increased risk of environmental damage such as pollution, habitat destruction, and the spread of invasive species. Park rangers and staff members are the ones responsible for protecting and conserving our parks; if they are fired, who is going to take care of our natural beauty?
Protests Have Brought Attention to This Issue
On March 1, 2025, thousands of people gathered at national parks throughout the country to protest the federal cuts to the United States’ historical lands. From the Grand Canyon to the Rocky Mountains to Yosemite, people marched with homemade signs, echoing a similar message: “Protect Our Parks.” Additionally, at Yosemite National Park, a group of laid-off park workers hung an American flag upside down at the top of El Captain, a 3,000-foot vertical rock formation. According to the US Flag Code, an upside-down American flag is a sign of “dire distress.” National Parks are public lands– public lands belong to all Americans. They are bipartisan. They are not something that should disputed over. “We don’t want to be that generation that disrupts over 100 years of protecting something and then ruins it. I think we want to be the generation that knows better,” says Kristen Brengel, the National Park Conservation Association’s senior vice president of government affairs. She is not wrong; we don’t want to be the generation that destroys the natural beauty of America. So many people are outraged that our parks are/will be in danger, so our people will continue to speak up, march, and rally for our National Parks.
Rehired?
Recent court orders authorize the National Park Service to reinstate the previous 1,000 fired employees across the country. These two court orders temporarily blocked the Trump Administration’s termination of NPS employees and other federal employees across multiple agencies and ordered them to be reinstated. The National Park Conservation Association welcomes these reinstatements, but it warns that our national parks remain in crisis. Many national park employees remain uncertain about their futures because the court orders are only temporary, so they could get refired. Additionally, there are other executive orders signed by Trump that will damage our National Parks. These include Executive Order 14154: Unleashing American Energy, Executive Order 14153: Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential, Executive Order 14241: Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production, and Executive Order 14156: Declaring a National Energy Emergency.
Dangers of These New Executive Orders
Our country has made significant progress in addressing the root cause of climate change: greenhouse gas emissions. We have expanded renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar. However, the executive orders mentioned above would undermine this progress by prioritizing fossil fuel extraction on public lands over cleaner alternatives. Cleaner alternatives are crucial in the fight against pollution. Millions of acres of land are already leased to oil and gas companies and dozens of national parks sit right next to lands that are open to oil and gas extraction. An increased development of oil and gas drilling could harm air quality, water, wildlife, and visitors. At Grand Teton and Yellow Stone National Parks, drilling has already begun and has interrupted the migration routes for pronghorn and mule deer that go in and out of park boundaries. This will lead to the decline of wildlife in our national parks.
Additionally, Trump’s executive order declaring a national energy emergency could put threatened and endangered animal species at risk. Our national parks provide some of the best habitats for these animals, but declaring a national energy emergency, allows the administration to expedite permits for oil and gas drilling. This means that companies could create new energy development sites in places where this practice is not healthy or compatible, destroying habitats, disrupting migration, and endangering the survival of wildlife.
Trump’s Executive Order 14153: Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential will
destroy Alaska’s environment. The goal of this executive order is to increase fossil fuel drilling, logging, mining, road building, and many other extractive projects throughout Alaska. It seems as though the goal of the Trump Administration is to undo as many environmental protections enacted by the Biden Administration as possible. They want to open Alaskan lands for unsustainable resource extraction and loosen regulations that were in place to protect these lands. Orders have protected Alaska's public land for decades, but Trump has decided that drilling is more important than protecting our environment. “Alaska is warming four times faster than the rest of the planet, a trend that is wreaking havoc on communities, ecosystems, fish, wildlife, and ways of life that depend on healthy lands and waters,” says Carole Holley, Earthjustice’s managing attorney for the Alaska Office. What Trump has in store for Alaska will destroy habitats and pollute water sources while continuing the climate crisis. One of the public lands that is affected by this executive order is the Arctic Refuge, which has been protected from fossil fuel extraction for years. The Arctic Refuge is sacred land for tribes and wildlife, but fossil fuel drilling will destroy an intact, crucial ecosystem and would add to the increasing climate crisis.
What Can We Do?
While it may seem impossible to have your voice heard about these issues, if we work together, we can help make a difference. Safeguarding America’s natural beauty has strong, bipartisan support, and the escalating climate and biodiversity crises call for more conservation efforts. The firing of National Park Service employees sparked outrage and protest– these protests helped to inform the public of the dangers our national parks currently face. There are many petitions that you can sign and you can call Congress to have your voice heard. You can donate to the National Park Foundation, or you can volunteer at your local national park to help with the shortage of staff. Our national parks need us more than ever; there is no Planet B.
