Cuts to US national parks and forests met with backlash
33 comments
·March 1, 2025latchkey
JumpCrisscross
> wonder how they will service the growth
They won’t. The next step will be illegal harvesting of resources from public lands going unpunished.
latchkey
BLM is huge, remote and hard to regulate. Wouldn't that already be happening if it was easy to do at scale?
JumpCrisscross
BLM controls the shit land. The only people who want it are ranchers for grazing. Our Parks and Forests contain vast resource and cultural wealth.
vonnik
Was at a couple national parks this month. The chaos due to short staffing saddened me. Foolish tourists will die or be hurt, and nature will be damaged, because the monitors and first responders are not there.
What’s the plan here? I thought these were America’s Crown Jewels, monuments we could point to and be proud of?
Advice I got from a ranger:
Stay away from the large famous national parks: Yellowstone, Glacier, Yosemite. Go to smaller lesser known national parks as well as state parks where the visitor/staff ratio is not ruinous.
stevenwoo
The GOP plan has always been to sell the vast majority of the land to the states because in the words of officials in places like Wyoming, Utah and Idaho, it's worthless to locals as federally managed lands, and the states will sell the rights to the resources (timber/gas oil production/livestock grazing) or the land itself for revenue (that lasts a few years so it's only a temporary fix.) The end game is something like Texas where most land with any water supply is privately owned, where there are federal parks, state parks and private parks (mostly for hunting). It's a very short term state tax solution that trades open space for temporary tax revenue. They would leave the unprofitable bits of national parks to the federal government.
https://www.npr.org/2024/10/03/nx-s1-5119930/utahs-controver...
This was part of Project 2025, as well, so we knew this going into the election but that was a lot of stuff.
marricks
> What’s the plan here?
There's only ever been one plan and it hasn't changed:
1) cut funding to a public service
2) said service goes to shit because it lacks support
3) use chaos as an excuse to privatize it so someone makes a buck
then move on to the next service
pchew
That's the plan for every other federal service. For public land in particular there's an extra fun bonus step of selling the land to be exploited fully. Look at the Secretary of Interior's record in North Dakota.
tym0
It "worked" for the UK, now the cost of water keeps raising and the level of service keeps going down.
mrtesthah
who needs public lands in the first place?
https://time.com/7261219/patagonia-ceo-trump-shouldnt-sell-p...
gryfft
I'm sure they'll be repurposed into something profitable. Perhaps by leasing out mineral rights, or by carving out some of the choicest spots as highest-end residential real estate.
No longer will America's resources be allowed to languish now that the government is finally running like a business. We can finally focus on what really matters: ROI.
a_thro_away
Sarcasm, or not, I hate your correct assessment in so many ugly, broken people's perspectives.
ArtTimeInvestor
It's tricky.
On the one hand, everybody seems to agree that countries should reduce their debt.
On the other hand, everybody seems to complain as soon as costs are cut.
Hasu
It's not tricky at all. When you're the richest country in the world and you have a lower than average tax rate, there is one very simple trick that gets rid of the debt problem.
ArtTimeInvestor
But that is not what the US voted for, is it?
IIRC Trump's campaign promised lower taxes, not higher taxes.
kubectl_h
What if I told you there is an amazing way to eliminate the national deficit, begin paying off our debts and reduce the taxes on the vast majority of people in this country without cutting costs indiscriminately...
lokar
I, and many others, don’t agree that we need to reduce the debt.
We need to ensure it grows a bit more slowly then gdp. On average, slower in boom years, faster in recession.
JumpCrisscross
> everybody seems to agree that countries should reduce their debt
The GOP’s budget proposes $2 trillion in new deficits over the next 10 years. Nobody is reducing debt. Ironically, the only deficit move to date from the Trump administration has been tax increases in the form of tariffs.
goosejuice
I think the complaints are more to do with how it's being done.
hotpotatoe
Yeah real tricky, cut the budget of a department that is already underfunded that protects our public lands and does honest work serving the public, while cutting taxes on corporations and the ultra rich. Only a bootlicker would find anything tricky about this.
wbl
The US budget deficit is driven by entitlements and the Trump tax cuts . It's very easy to balance the budget with small reforms to Social security and Medicaid and raising some revenue.
thrance
No, a lot of people have been tricked into thinking austerity is the only way to reduce their country's debt.
All the while billionaires gorge themselves on public money and contribute ever less to society.
molticrystal
What is the rational of the firings? Is it because some people's jobs overlap with tagging and tracking wildlife and that overshadows their other roles and thus get fired for environmentalism or protecting endangered or at risk species? Is a because they see DEI? Is it because they want to develop the land? Did they not fill out their 5 things they did last week, or was it conveniently "lost" in the email system?
Clearing trails and removing litter is a vital activity, and just a small part of what these people do, and if they are going to be removed, I'd like to know why they choose some and not others, and not what they put in the box on the form which has nothing to do with the decision.
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throw930404945
》 team typically carry 600lbs (270kg) of litter on their backs out
Big part of recent increase in expenses is thanks to dog owners, and damage they do to environment. Post-covid everyone now owns a dog, and leaves bags of poop hanging from tree branches, like some sort of perverted Christmas tree
Banning dogs from all national parks, would solve all financial issues!!!
freen
Trump’s visits to the Super Bowl and the Indie 500 alone cost the tax payers more than was saved by cuts to the national parks staffing.
People’s lives, homes, families.
Folks who have dedicated their lives to enabling their fellow citizens to experience the grandeur of our nation’s natural beauty.
For a photo op.
jfengel
All of the salaries together don't add up to anywhere near their supposed budget cut. It's not about saving money or efficiency. It's about harassing government employees.
And as far as I can tell, that is what the voters who chose him want. Maybe they'll change their mind if some service (like national parks) starts to fail for them specifically, but until then they seem thrilled that the right people are being harmed.
freen
The cruelty is the point.
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k310
Destroy every agency and privatize them.
I'm traveling around the western US in my campervan for the last month going between various parks.
Lesser known NP's aren't even checking people at the gate on the way in. I've been able to (leave no trace) boondock easily within the boundaries by finding side roads or even just staying the night in a dead end parking lot. Something I probably wouldn't have tried when it is more busy.
If this is what it is like to see the park without staff, when warmer weather hits and the parks begin to really fill up, it is going to be a mess. Some of the parks seem to be under various forms of winter expansion and construction of campgrounds, I wonder how they will service the growth.
Maybe this happens to be the perfect time right now to be doing this then. The irony for me is that this travel is only possible for me because of Starlink. Thanks Elon?