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The world's greatest collection of parks is not well/NPS file of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve

A country’s wealth, and its soul, can be measured in how it cares for its natural resources. Its wildlife, vistas, forests, streams, and lakes.

Theodore Roosevelt appreciated that more than a century ago, telling the Colorado Livestock Association on a cool, late August day in 1910 that, "[T]he nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased; and not impaired in value.”

How are we doing in that regard? 

The National Parks Traveler has delved into that question often over the past two decades. We’ve reported on ups and downs, usually with a plucky National Park Service making the best of tight staffing to deliver an always-in-demand visitor experience. But pressures on the system have become cumulative, and today the parks need a lot of help to meet Roosevelt’s challenge. That means there’s not really a conservation cushion to rely on, a crucial point just as President Trump sets about imposing an unprecedented shrinkage of the federal government while maximizing
resource extraction on public lands and deregulation of environmental laws.

The parks themselves are one of nation's most remarkable and important achievements.

In assembling what many believe is the world’s best collection of national parks, the United States has protected the world's greatest collection of thermal features — geysers, fumeroles, and mudpots. There is the grandest example of erosion, one still at work as the Colorado River continues to bore through limestone layers in northern Arizona on its way towards the Gulf of California, and the world’s most active volcano is surrounded by a national park on the Big Island of Hawaii. More tree species — more than 100 — grow in Great Smoky Mountains National Park than in all of Europe, and the world’s longest cave tunnels beneath the heartland of Kentucky and is protected as Mammoth Cave National Park. There are but a small fraction of the wonders protected under the National Park System bt generations of U.S. lawmakers and officials.

Some of these lands, as historian Alfred Runte pointed out in National Parks, The American Experience, were added to the growing National Park System because they were considered worthless. And look at what they’ve turned into.

But how are we doing?

At Biscayne, Everglades, and Dry Tortugas national parks, disease and sickly warm waters have turned elkhorn corals into a threatened species, and staghorn corals into an endangered species. At Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, microplastics have been found at an elevation of 10,300 feet, ozone levels at times endanger your health at Shenandoah National Park, while haze can obscure the views from Moro Rock in Sequoia National Park.

Glacier National Park in Montana is running low on glaciers. Joshua Tree National Park in California might run out of Joshua trees. Acadia National Park could lose its red-breasted nuthatches and spruce forests. Cape Hatteras National Seashore could … wash away. Sequoia trees are considered to be endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. This, too, is merely a token list of the many challenges/threats besetting our parks.

We’re not doing so well. 

The national park experience today is not what it was 50 years ago. Some parks are overcrowded, requiring a reservation to enter; lodging prices can be breathtaking; you need to reserve a campsite six months ahead of your visit to be assured of having a place to pitch your tent or park your RV. The fishing isn’t what it used to be, invasive species are so rampant that you can’t bring firewood with you because it might import nasty insects that can devastate a forest, some trails require a reservation to hike.

And now there’s an administration in Washington that thinks a leaner National Park Service, one already struggling with staffing levels that have fallen 20 percent since 2010, is what's needed to manage more than 331 million visitors a year. Of the 68 national parks and national seashores the Traveler surveyed in 2023, more than half experienced a decline in the number of employees the past two decades. 

Things are so bad, staffing-wise, that national park superintendents were told this week to find staff wherever they can — other parks, state parks, tribes, concessionaires — to keep their parks running this year. At least the crowd-facing side of the parks, for superintendents have been told to move those employees not usually dealing with the public to the visitors' side of the parks, if needed. In fact, the administration seems to be choosing visitor experience over the Park Service's founding mandate to protect and preserve these natural resources for future generations.

"Park managers should prioritize activities that deliver the greatest benefit to the greatest number of visitors. When making operational decisions, managers should evaluate ongoing activities to ensure they are focusing on core visitor services, statutory mandates, and Executive and Secretarial Orders," acting Park Service Director Jessica Bowron told superintendents this week. "Work that does not directly contribute to these priorities should be adjusted, scaled back, or deferred as appropriate, and staff that do not directly support these priorities may be redirected to higher priority needs."

Bowron, at the same time, told superintendents to "remember the safety of visitors and employees, and protection of government property and resources from imminent harm, remains paramount, so park managers should continue to implement emergency closures due to inclement weather, natural hazards, law enforcement activities, and similar unforeseen circumstances without delay."

But at the end of the day, the Trump administration wants more logging on public lands, more drilling on public lands, and more mining and energy development on public lands. It’s an administration that wants less protections for plant and animal species barreling towards extinction, one that doesn't believe in climate change that is impacting parks.

We are watching an administration hell-bent on “drill, baby, drill,” "mine, baby, mine," deregulation, and a deconstructed federal government. It's an administration that you have to wonder whether it can be trusted with managing that once-magnificent National Park System.

We don’t think so.