President Trump is dismantling our national parks
Trump does not grasp that if parks nationwide are degraded, thousands of small businesses located in or near the parks will suffer, and tens of thousands of people will be out of work.
President Ulysses S. Grant established Yellowstone as the first national park on March 1, 1872. Ever since, 27 American presidents have supported, nurtured, and developed national parks — that is, until now, with this president, Donald Trump.
Over the course of the past 153 years, presidents have grown the number of parks to today’s 423. Last year, more than 325 million people visited these sites. But this year, visitors to national parks experienced closed campsites, canceled summer camps and school science programs, and visitor centers either closed or with limited hours.
These Trump-era cutbacks began the disassembling of a system of national parks that was the pride of America and the envy of the world.
In the 11 months since President Trump began his second term, the National Park System has experienced astounding reductions in personnel, staggering cuts to operations and infrastructure budgets, widespread eliminations of environmental protections, and baffling erasures of historical facts.
National park budget cuts, which were first proposed by the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, have totaled roughly 35%.
Implemented by Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, the cuts have led to thousands of public servants being fired and day-to-day operations being vastly curtailed.
Taking it to the next step, Trump’s secretary of the interior, Doug Burgum, who oversees national parks, is considering a plan for the elimination of up to 350 park sites across the country. Burgum is apt to diminish or shutter sites that fall vulnerable to Trump’s executive order, cynically titled, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”
Park sites seen as not conforming to the order might include the Manzanar National Historic Site in California, which describes the government’s forced race-based relocation to detention camps of Japanese Americans at the start of World War II, or the Stonewall National Monument in New York City, where the advancement of civil rights for LGBTQ+ Americans is celebrated.
National parks across the country are also burdened with huge backlogs of deferred maintenance to infrastructure.
Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island in New York Harbor stand proudly as memorials to those who migrated to the United States to escape poverty, repression, and tyranny. Many of the nearly four million who visit every year pay honor to ancestors who made new homes, raised families, and helped build the American dream.
Sadly, though, deteriorating structural conditions at these historic sites have led to a $288 million repair shortfall. This backlog will grow because the Trump administration has suspended many new public works projects.
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina is a natural gem that attracts over 12 million visitors a year. People come to camp, hike, fish, or enjoy the awesome scenery.
Guests also spend an estimated $2.1 billion annually boosting area lodgings, restaurants, and convenience stores. This economic dynamic supports over 20,000 jobs in the region.
President Trump apparently does not grasp that if parks nationwide are degraded through deep budget cuts, thousands of small businesses located in or near national park gateway communities will suffer, and tens of thousands of employees, mostly in the private sector, will be out of work.
The President’s House Site at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia memorializes nine people who were enslaved there while George Washington was president in the earliest years of the republic. Their names are Austin, Christopher Sheels, Giles, Hercules, Joe, Moll, Oney Judge, Paris, and Richmond. The house site reflects this important detail and describes it truthfully. Yet, this president has ordered that the story be altered to be compatible with a sanitized — and dishonest — description of history.
By erasing this factual presentation at Independence Park, a venerated place that represents the founding ideals of the nation, President Trump is revealing a vivid disrespect not only for African Americans but for all of us.
Slashed funding, fired employees, endangered properties, lost revenue, environmental rollbacks, whitewashed history: this will be the public lands legacy of President Donald Trump.
The damage to national parks that Trump and his loyalists have already inflicted is so profound that it will take years for these sites to recover.
We citizens, though, can do something now to help save them. We can write, call, or text members of Congress to demand they step up and repel this president’s egregious assault on parks.
Meanwhile, we should also make sure to visit a nearby national park site, seek out a ranger or guide, and assure them that we will do our part to defend and protect America’s magnificent national parks.
John Plonski was a finalist for the 2023 Theodore Roosevelt Genius Prize for the Promotion of Conservation and served as executive secretary of the Pennsylvania State Park and Forest Systems from 1995-2004.