Your summer trips to the Mighty Five may look a bit different this year, as the National Park Services face staffing shortages, protection rollbacks and structural upheavals within the Department of the Interior. As NPS leadership braces for the surge of high season, employee morale—and the future of public land preservation—sink deeper into uncertainty.
The loss of expert personnel is not just a detriment to visitors, but to the ecosystems these parks exist to protect. Photo courtesy of NPS.gov
In February, the White House Department of Government Efficiency laid off nearly 1,000 NPS employees as part of a larger plan to reduce the federal workforce. Those targeted by the layoffs included probationary employees, but also a range of specialized positions, including emergency rescue, park guides, exhibit specialists, biologists and more. To further strain the already-thinned ranks, nearly 5,000 offers to seasonal employees—vital to maintaining park access and safety during the busy summer months—were
also rescinded.
Among those hit hardest by layoffs were Florida’s Everglades National Park, New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns National Park and Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park. Closer to home, Utah’s own Zion National Park lost 13 employees, according to the Executive Director of the Association of National Park Rangers, Bill Wade. The impact was immediate. Visitors and staff alike encountered trail closures, reduced visitor center hours and long entrance lines—cars entering Zion stacked more than a half mile into Springdale over the last Presidents Day weekend.
The crown jewel of Utah’s Mighty Five, Zion National Park sees a surge of visitors during the summer. Last year the park reported 4.9 million visitors and was the second-most visited National Park in the country. Photo credit Unsplash
The long-term consequences of NPS instability include much more than just visitor inconveniences. Stretched-thin rescue services make national parks inherently more dangerous, forcing some park managers to close high-risk trails altogether. At Arches National Park, the beloved Fiery Furnace hiking area was closed indefinitely on March 27 due to a shortage of available rescue personnel. Arches spokesperson Karen Hanker says the closure was a direct response to a the cuts. “Should something happen to someone in the Fiery Furnace, we would need to provide support,” Hanker said in a statement to the Moab Times-Independent. “Rescues are incredibly staff-intensive anywhere in the park, let alone a place as geologically complex as the Fiery Furnace.”
The loss of expert personnel is not just a detriment to visitors, but to the ecosystems these parks exist to protect. Land stewards engage in ecological monitoring, long-term wildlife health, water quality, night-sky preservation and more—all of which are at risk with the drastic structural changes occurring under the current administration. “Land managers do incredibly important work,” said Outdoor Alliance VP for Policy and Government Relations Louis Geltman. “They are at the front line for stewarding the resources we all care so much about, and the loss of these workers will have real, tangible impacts on our public lands.” Predicting the full extent of the fallout remains difficult, as new directives continue to emerge almost daily from the Supreme Court and the Department of the Interior.
Protestors gather at Zion National Park to advocate for public lands. Photo credit Nature Needs Us | natureneeds.us.
Efforts to reverse the damage have met resistance. In late March, two U.S. District Court judges ruled to reinstate the 16,000 laid-off employees across the federal government, including those within the NPS. The whiplash continued when the Supreme Court placed a hold on the order on April 8, creating a hiring freeze and further confusion. Just a week later, on April 17, Interior Secretary Doug Burghum signed a sweeping order transferring staffing and structural authority for the Department of the Interior to Tyler Hassen, former oil executive at Basin Energy. The appointed official is now acting chief for policy, management and budget across the National Park Services, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, Bureau of Land Management and other Interior bureaus. The secretarial order has raised alarm bells for conservation groups and environmental advocates, who view it as a significant step toward a full DOGE-led reorganization of the DOI. “This order shows what it looks like when leaders abdicate their jobs and let unqualified outsiders fire thousands of civil servants who are working on behalf of all Americans and their public lands,” said Center for Western Priorities Executive Director Jennifer Rokala in a statement.
Amid sweeping layoffs and shifting leadership, the National Park Service stands at a crossroads—undermined by uncertainty, stretched thin by politics, and struggling to protect the lands it was built to serve.
More Policy Endangering Public Lands
In the first weeks of his presidency, Trump declared a National Energy Emergency, citing an insufficient energy supply, grid instability, and notably, the need to tap into “unrealized energy resources” across the country. The executive order has serious consequences for public lands, whose protections are in danger of being rolled back to open up for extraction projects. In late April, the Interior Department announced that it would begin fast-tracking permits for fossil fuels and mining operations, slashing the approval timeline from years to just 28 days. Expedited permitting will more than likely override environmental safeguards, which could mean some of our favorite natural landscapes will become riddled with drilling rigs. Ongoing efforts to shrink national monuments like Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears, along with pushes to privatize public lands, further darken the outlook for America’s natural spaces.
More Than Maintenance
Beyond their many external-facing duties, NPS employees research, survey and develop plans to protect and preserve our public lands.
- Scientists at the NPS Air Resources Division monitor smog, smoke and visibility to reduce air pollution.
- NPS Climate Change response program helps parks plan for ongoing sea level rise, increasing wildfires and extreme weather
- NPS Natural Sounds + Night Skies Division preserves our Dark Skies by studying baseline light and noise levels to help mitigate sources of pollution
- NPS Youth + Young Adult Programs partner with service organizations to place young people in parks across the country, shaping the next generation of public lands advocates
- NPS Office of Native American Affairs supports the US’s Trust and Treaty responsibilities to tribal nations
- NPS Tribal Historic Preservation Officers ensure cultural, religious, and spiritual sites are protected as required by federal law.
Action Items
Public lands belong to all of us. The fight to protect them is now.
- Follow and support local land advocacy groups, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, National Parks Conservation Association, Outdoor Alliance, Utah Open Lands and Heal Utah
- Follow and stay informed with watchdog groups like @restistancerangers
- Vote in local elections, share your voice on why you love public lands, and post about issues you care about
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