Your national parks are under attack. From within! Can this be?
Imagine for a moment, billboards . . . . far as you can see
all over what used to be . . . . the national park: Yosemite
© Forrest W. Heaton June 2025
Politics. Mary & I have advised our readers we will not write about politics to respect our readers’ political position. This post breaks that promise due to the need to call or write our U.S. Congress person and U.S. senators. Our national Parks are under attack; from within. We need to speak out.
National Parks Magazine Summer2025 Issue. Those of you who donate to the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) know that in addition to providing funding to protect the parks, you receive their “National Parks” magazine which is loaded with current content designed to help you appreciate this heritage, use it and protect it. The Summer 2025 issue entitled “Dark Days” just came to our door (inspiring this post.) The issues highlighted include: 1) “cutting the workforce,” 2) “undermining environmental laws,” 3) “rewriting history.” They could have included the planned sell off of public lands. Yes, these are “dark days” for the U.S. national parks.
Robert Sterling Yard. In 1919, Robert Sterling Yard, the first director of the National Parks Association (NPA), (the forerunner of the NPCA) was one of the founders of the NPCA, wrote: “It will be the people who will save their own national parks.” The NPCA highlights this quote on their website for potential donors. One wonders if Yard could have imagined that the destruction (or the planned elimination) of the national parks would be attempted by our own President of the United States and his silent (and complicit) senators and Congresspersons?
No Kings. We are beginning to draft this post 20June. Much will happen in the national parks and on the national political scene before it is published. Last Saturday, 14 June, an estimated five million (5 MILLION! ) ordinary Americans showed up at protests in most U.S. cities. The protestors were not paid. One from our Continuing Care and Retirement Center (CCRC) was in her automated wheeled chair with her sign (she, like us, is an aging senior and good friend. The protestors were protesting Trump and the current policies of the administration. (Read the signs.) In the weeks to come we anticipate a continuation of the protests with more Americans showing up.
Together. This post is not an anti Trump post. We encourage respect for political views other than our own. We believe that is the way to try to reach those who voted for Trump and try to bring about the policies we feel are right for America.
Death Threats. U.S. Senator Thom Tillis on 25 March 25 advised the public of the death threats political leaders like him have received. Threats like these have been effective in causing Senators and Congress persons to remain silent and not exercise advise and consent (per the founding fathers.) He advises the threats threaten our democracy and they must cease. We congratulate Senator Tillis for choosing to advise the public on this issue and support similar courage from others in Congress and state houses.
The Planned Sale of Public Land. In May 2025 the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill entitled H.R. 1, also referred to by Trumpites as the “Big Beautiful Bill.” It now goes to the Senate for consideration. In the discussion of the bill some representatives from the President’s party discussed plans to sell off public lands. Additionally the bill puts park staffing at risk, promotes oil & gas drilling and mining on public lands and clearly does not address protection. Selling this heritage from former generations seems to many Americans a crass dereliction of duty. These lands were protected by previous generations and passed on to us for our use and our children’s use, not for sale! These lands as the NPCA advises “need to stay in the public’s hands.” What is needed is senators from the President’s party to reject the proposals in this bill.
Park Visitation/Trump’s Budget. The National Park Service (NPS) reported “a record-breaking 331.9 million recreation visits across its 433 sites” for 2024. This represented a 2% increase over 2023. Regarding staffing cuts, the NPCA advises: Trump’s budget (which includes cutting over one billion dollars from the NPS) “would force the closure of more than 350 parks, 75% of the entire national park system.” This budget according to the NPCA threatens “the largest rollback of protections for national parks and monuments in U.S. history.”
Update. As we predicted in the above “No Kings” paragraph, events have outpaced this blog post. The Senate (with its current republican majority) passed its bill that the NPCA considers “worse than the House bill”. According to Heather Cox Richardson. “the republican’s budget reconciliation bill (their answer to H.R.1 from the House) requires the sale of up to 3.3 million acres of publicly owned land over the next five years.” We called Senator Tillis’ office this afternoon requesting he represent us in not voting yes for this amendment or any sale of public land.
