Project 2025–which declares the intentions of the incoming Trump Administration–states that they plan on “Personnel Changes” in America’s national parks. They have announced their intention to fire many federal employees, and we should expect that to include national park staff.
Here are five reasons why America should keep its national park rangers.
1. Trained workforce
One of the stated goals of Project 2025 is to fire most national park employees and replace them with state park staff (in other words, giving national parks to states to run). According to Project 2025 in regards to Department of the Interior staff, “The new Administration should be able to draw on the enormous expertise of state agency personnel throughout the country who are capable and knowledgeable about land management and prove it daily.”
State park staff are incredibly knowledgeable about their parks and public lands. But national park staff have specialized knowledge and experience of national parks.
The Administration says they want “capable and knowledgeable” employees running national parks. Guess what? National parks already have that level of trained staff.
National parks need preservationists to protect the historic structures and artifacts that tell the story of America. They need scientists–archaeologists, botanists, biologists, ecologists, and those of other disciplines–to protect and preserve the natural and cultural treasures that we love. National parks need administrative and maintenance staff to keep the parks operating. They need public education and protection rangers to help visitors of all ages learn about and explore parks safely. And they have them.
America’s national parks employ thousands of rangers with years and even decades of experience at maintaining national parks, people who are passing their knowledge down to the next generation of national park rangers. Getting rid of them would mean losing that invaluable institutional knowledge, and our national parks would suffer.
2. Less staff means fewer people to protect parks
The mission of US national parks is to protect places deemed vital to our national heritage for this and future generations. National parks preserve critical species, landscapes, and history. Much of this work requires skilled staff, and without these workers national parks wouldn’t be able to achieve their mission.
Look at what happened under President Trump during the 2019 government shutdown, which lasted 35 days and furloughed many national park rangers.
Forced to remain open but overseen by skeleton crews, many of our most beloved national parks were vandalized, damaged, and overrun with trash or human waste.
National parks need large staffs to manage them because they are so popular: the National Park Service (NPS) reports that they welcomed 325.5 million visitors in 2023, the second busiest year on record. National parks are only gaining in popularity, meaning they require more staff to protect them, not less.
3. Many national parks are already understaffed
Years of cuts to the NPS budget have already led to dramatic shifts in national park staffing. Between 2010 and 2023, the NPS lost almost half (48%) of its law enforcement rangers, the folks who protect parks and park visitors.
And this drop in staff isn’t just in law enforcement; parks are losing employees of all kinds because they can’t afford to keep them. And those losses are having some serious impacts on our national parks.
Take maintenance staff. Between 2011 and 2019 the NPS lost around a quarter of its maintenance workers, a number that’s only grown since. These are the employees who maintain park infrastructure, and the loss of their jobs is a major contributor to the horror known as the deferred maintenance backlog.
Essentially, this backlog is a massive list of maintenance projects that are not getting done in America’s national parks, often because there are fewer and fewer workers to prevent problems or fix them when they arise.
By the end of 2023, the deferred maintenance backlog in US national parks had ballooned to $23.3 billion dollars. That’s nearly double what it was in 2010 (when it was $11-12 billion), when dramatic losses of park maintenance employees began.
If we want to maintain our national parks we need to retain and even increase national park staff, not continue to cut them.
4. People love park rangers
National parks are often touted as “America’s Best Idea,” and they may be. I would argue though that the companion invention of the national park ranger was just as great an idea.
People love the idea of the national park ranger. I worked as one for nearly a decade, and every day I met folks who told me they dreamed of being a park ranger. “That’s my dream job!” people would say, and I believed them, because it was once my dream job too.
Since national park rangers came into existence over a hundred years ago, the job has become mythologized. I have genuinely shocked people by telling them that my job as a ranger didn’t entail roaming the wilderness on horseback, spending every evening telling wild tales around a campfire, eating only beans out of a can, or feeding bears out of my hand.
But the actual work of a national park ranger is as valuable as it is legendary, and not just to the parks they care for.
The national park ranger is an American icon, known the world over (people from all over the world want a picture with a real American park ranger–trust me). Getting rid of one of our most popular American symbols would diminish our dreams and our standing in the world.
5. Americans love parks the way they are
A poll conducted by YouGov in 2022 found what I already knew after nearly a decade of working in national parks: Americans think their national parks are pretty great. Three-fourths of those Americans polled held a favorable opinion of US national parks and a similar number felt that national parks are managed well. 75% of them were interested in visiting national parks.
Americans do not want parks to change. Americans want national parks to be there for them to visit, and they want to see national park rangers there when they do. Why fire the people who take care of our parks? Why alter possibly irreparably something Americans love as it is?
I really hope that they don’t cut the NPS any more than the cuts they have endured over the years. I live near the Ozark National Scenic Riverways in Missouri. I love it, swimming in the summer, walking my dog year round, taking pictures, having picnics, camping. I can’t canoe but used to fish and ride in the john boat. My dog even misses her walks when they have shut down parts during floods. She jumps in the car when I say Alley Spring. I admire the rangers and maintenance staff in all they do and try to do with what is given by congress. People love the parks nation wide. I hope we don’t lose it. I grew up in the Adirondacks area of upstate NY and the national parks are along the best I have ever scene. Privatizing would be a tragedy.
Thank you for sharing your stories! Experiences like yours are another great reason why we need to protect our national parks. People like you help me believe we can all work together to protect our parks and our park rangers.
I hope you and your dog get to explore the Riverway for many more years. Thanks so much for reading.