Why and How We Should Protect U.S. National Parks

Most of the time, this is a pop culture blog. However, my country is turning into a fascist nightmare run by insane tech billionaires, and they’re tearing the U.S. government apart. One way they’re doing that is by illegally firing federal workers en masse. They’ve fired 3,400 new Forest Service hires (people who’ve been hired in the last years or so), along with 1,000 National Parks Service (NPS) recent hires. According to that article from The Guardian, that accounts for 10% of the Forest Service’s workforce and 5% of the NPS’s workforce. That’s important to know because Elon Musk and his Muskrats at DOGE (which is not a really or legal U.S. federal department) want the National Parks to shut down.

Why would a bunch of ultra-rich tech-bro asshats want to shut down the National Parks Service, which has been called “America’s Best Idea” in the past? So they can shut the NPS down, and then their billionaire buddies can develop housing and apartments on some of that land and drill on other parts of that land. I imagine Elon Musk also wants to build a mansion that overlooks Crater Lake National Parks or something like that.

But they’re not supposed to do that. That’s public land that’s set aside for everyone to enjoy, and in many cases, the NPS work with local Indigenous peoples in and around those parks to preserve their sacred spaces. And according to that Guardian article, the U.S. National Parks welcome 159 million visitors per year. 159 million people is the size of a large sovereign nation (for reference, the U.S. has around 330 million citizens, and it’s one of the top 5 most populous nations on Earth). The National Park Service guards so many wonderful things, and people clearly love visiting the sites it protects. That’s why we have to make sure that the NPS doesn’t go away.

That’s the reason why we need to protect the U.S. National Parks, but how can we do that?

We can do that by continuing to show up to the sites in the NPS’s system. We need to show that we care about these places and that we want to see and learn from them.

Now, you may be thinking, “But I don’t live near a National Park like Yellowstone or Yosemite. Can I still support the NPS?” Yes, you can. The National Park Service has many more sites than just the big National Parks. There are many different NPS designations, as detailed by this NPS webpage and this Wikipedia page. If you don’t live near a major park, you can search for other types of National Park units. For example, if you live in a state that borders one of the Great Lakes, you could visit a National Lakeshore. If you live on one of the coasts, you could visit a National Seashore (ex.: Cape Cod National Seashore). There are also National Historic Sites, National Rivers, National Battlefields, and many more sites to see.

But don’t we only need to protect the big National Parks? No, we need to protect all the NPS units, including the National Historic Sites and everything else. Why? Well, if no one visits buildings that are National Historic Sites (like, say, the George Washington Carver National Historic Site in Diamond, Missouri), Elon Musk and other billionaires will say that that site isn’t necessary anymore, and then knock it down and build a Starbucks in that spot. And if you don’t visit the Cape Cod National Seashore, the billionaire oligarchs will shut that public beach down and let their buddies in the tourism industry build tons of high-rise hotels there, forever reshaping that landscape.

They shouldn’t be allowed to take these things because these sites and natural spaces were intentionally set aside so the public could enjoy and learn from them.

Now, while trying to protect the NPS units in this way sounds great in theory, it’s going to take some extra work from us, the public. After all, the NPS units are understaffed, so they won’t have as many park rangers, search and rescue personnel, docents, and other staff to help you when you visit.

So what does that mean? Research where you’re going before you visit. If you’re going to a National Park, look up what the climate is like there and what the local weather forecasts will be. You should also research what type of things you need to take with you if you’re going to hike or camp (especially if you’re going to be in an unfamiliar climate, like a desert or the Rocky Mountains). Also research whether any trails or campsites have been closed for safety reasons (fallen trees, rockslides, etc.). Finally, don’t do anything reckless like standing on the edge of a cliff trying to get the perfect photo for Instagram because search and rescue personnel may not be around to come and get you.

Oh, and please Leave No Trace. The Leave No Trace policy means that you do not litter in the parks, do not touch the animals or remove any plants, and don’t start any fires, among other things. Essentially, try to minimize any reminders that you were ever in the park/site/seashore/battlefield/etc. While this is a good policy in general, Leave No Trace is extremely important right now because there may not be enough rangers and other NPS personnel to pick up after you. So be aware of what you are doing.

Also, one more thing: don’t leave negative reviews of NPS units on websites like Yelp. They used to be funny when these areas were guaranteed to be protected, but now, Elon Musk and other billionaires could use them to justify getting rid of the NPS system altogether, saying that people don’t enjoy or understand these places, so they shouldn’t exist. And if you don’t care about this possibility, you should care that your negative review could end up in an online art project like Subpar Parks:

This project was started by Amber Share in 2019. Luckily, she only features reviews written before she started the project, but you should know that artists and other creatives find sarcastic inspiration in those one-star NPS reviews. You don’t want to find that your review was used to show that many people visit these parks and have no idea that bugs exist in nature or that an Alaskan fjord is not Sea World, now, do you?

In summary: visit the National Park Service units near you; be clean, polite, and respectful; and don’t badmouth these sites! That’s all for now. We can help protect the U.S.’s National Parks!