In Appreciation of National Park Rangers
And what we can do to help save them and the parks from the coup
For all of this constitutional crisis we’ve been experiencing for the last few years-long (at least it feels like it) weeks, I’ve wondered when the national parks would finally be in the crosshairs of the usurpers of this coup we’re experiencing. Of course, priorities of DOGE were first to severely harm the most vulnerable people in the country and world (e.g., beginning their “mass deportations,” persecuting trans people for merely existing, blocking aid from getting to lower-income countries, and finding ways to weasel their way into the social security system…the list goes on of course).
But with all of the mass firings and the shutting down of entire U.S. agencies just because they don’t like them, I wondered when the national parks would be on the chopping block.
Welp, that happened this last week amidst many other firings across the federal government. Around 1,000 National Park Service employees were fired last week. This is all in advance of the busy spring break travel season where thousands of families flock to the natural wonders that have been protected since Yellowstone National Park was established in 1872 as the first national park. Since then, the National Parks Service has grown to encompass 422 units across 83 million acres of land including the 63 national parks, 76 national historic sites, 19 national preserves, 10 national seashores and many more.
While the narrative we’ve absorbed about The National Parks System—that the government is protecting untouched wilderness—is very problematic given that Indigenous peoples had lived one and managed all that land for millennia and had effectively been kicked off said land to create the NPS. However, more of this narrative is getting acknowledged and brought into some park literature. But that’s a post for another time. For the moment, I want to acknowledge and honor the NPS, but especially the incredible rangers who protect and maintain and educate the public about our national parks. The pure existence of these protected spaces provides a window for people to see how essential our natural spaces and ecosystems are for our country and our planet and park rangers help bridge that gap to help visitors merely visit, but think about and understand the parks.
“Park rangers are the librarians of the forest. Without them we are lost,” poet, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, posted on Instagram over the weekend. She received an email from a student who remembered her saying this at a school she visited three years ago. And it struck me as so achingly true.
There is something so special about the people who choose to be park rangers in the same way librarians are special. They chose that life path because they wanted to share something they love with other people and the world. They are the ambassadors of these truly awe-inspiring places.
And both librarians and park rangers have been the source of so much of my delight on social media for the past couple years.
In light of the recent firings, I have wondered about the rangers that I’ve “gotten to know” from the delightful posts such as this incredible performance by Ranger Peelee from Theodore Roosevelt NPS (which I’ll say I never really thought or knew about until I started going down the Ranger Peelee dance binge):
Or honestly any reel from ZionNPS like this incredible take on The Office
I could go on for ages with the social media, but let these be your starting point to going down a delight scroll.
The employees of the National Park Service have also been central to the resistance. Since Trump 1.0 and even moreso in Trump 2.0, the Alt National Parks social media have been an important source of insider information about what is happening inside the federal government—providing updates and detailed whistleblower-type information. Their pulse on the facts has been huge for fueling the resistance.
But it’s also just the work that these rangers do. They keep these places safe for visitors and from visitors. Do you remember back during the December 2018-January 2019 government shutdown where many of the parks were unstaffed yet still open during the 35-day closure and garbage cans were overflowing, toilets were getting backed up causing major sanitation issues, and vandalism ran rampant? While there are still going to be staff at national parks, the severe cutting of staff is going to produce an even longer-term repeat of that fiasco. We’ll find out during the busy spring break travel season how understaffed parks will be.
Of course, all of this was expected. I’ve been working on another book project that involves the national parks, and I’ve thought a lot about what a second Trump term would do to public lands. Admittedly, I didn’t think it would happen this fast or in this particular way (I mean, I also didn’t realize that evil billionaire, Elon Musk, would be an unelected co-President and treat the federal government like Twitter), but Trump has made it clear from the beginning that he sees public lands as ripe for the taking and extracting. I currently don’t think we’ll be seeing oil rigs dotting the national park’s landscapes (although you honestly never know), but I do know that Project 2025 has called for doing away with the Antiquities Act of 1906 which would make it easier to severely downsize national monuments. But even if they can’t manage to repeal the Antiquities Act, there’s a lot that they can do such as what Trump did in his first administration under which we saw the largest reduction of public lands in American history.
So this, my friends, feels like just the beginning. It starts with the rangers and then what?
So let’s take some action. I’m going to rip a bit from the @goodgoodgoodco account that had some very specific recommendations on actions to take. For your convenience, I’ll list them here:
Sign this National Park Conservation Association (NPCA) Petition to help save NPS staff. (You can find some other more specific petitions to sign here).
Call your elected officials to ask for them to protect the national parks.
Volunteer at a park near you to help fill in the gaps left by the fired employees.
Donate to the National Parks Conservation Association, the National Parks Foundation, and the National Forest Foundation.
Leave no trace—meaning don’t be a part of the problem that short-staffing is inevitably helping to cause and bring your own trash out of the park.
You can find the full article that covers some of what’s been happening over the past few weeks and these action recommendations here.
I know that it’s so overwhelming to figure out how to react or respond to what Steve Bannon calls “flooding the zone with shit.” There are so many important issues that we can focus on. So hopefully this gives you at least one issue to take action on.