What’s the Trump Administration’s End Game for the National Parks?
October 25, 2025 at 12:06AMWhat’s going on with National Parks in the US? Rumours and speculation have been rife following the staffing and funding reductions under the Trump administration. In the first reported piece for the new nonprofit newsroom RE:PUBLIC Lands Media, and in partnership with Outside, Gloria Liu goes beyond the state of park toilets to provide a definitive account of what is happening behind the “facade management.” The result is a harrowing warning.
Yosemite Valley, with its narrow slice of swimming pools and tent villages and end-of-season Patagonia sales, belies the fact that nearly 95 percent of the park is Congressionally designated wilderness where, according to law, “the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man.” Road construction is prohibited in wilderness areas, but as I stood on the shore of Upper Gaylor Lake, the Trump administration was trying to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule that prevents it. If they succeed, this will open up around 50 million acres of national forestland to logging, including in the Inyo National Forest just 1,500 feet from where I stood.
National parks are the darlings of public lands, receiving the highest degree of protection and the most public support. A natural question: If the administration is kneecapping the park service, what’s happening to more vulnerable agencies? Childers, the historian, called national parks the “canary in the coal mine” for threats to public lands.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/10/24/whats-the-trump-administrations-end-game-for-the-national-parks/
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