In the summer of 2016, I was a US national park ranger in a park that–despite having its budget repeatedly slashed in recent years–was seeing a large increase in visitors. It was the summer of the National Park Service (NPS) centennial, and there was a big advertising push to bring people into the parks to celebrate the agency’s birthday.
And the people came: national parks across the nation saw more visitors that summer than any before. Yet these same parks were losing staff due to budget shortages.
Despite recent setbacks, my supervisor at the time was ecstatic. He told us over and over that this was it.
“Just you wait–all these people are going to go home and vote to support national parks. You’ll see. The election is coming up, and now that they’ve seen what we protect they’ll vote to support us. The funding we need is coming.”
When the 2016 election did come, it brought us the first term of President Donald Trump and a Republican controlled Congress. They continued their decades-long work of defunding national parks.
As a national park ranger I encountered folks from across the political landscape who loved national parks and thought they should be funded. Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and international visitors who knew nothing of US politics all visited and adored the parks.
The leadership of the Republican Party, though, uses their political power to attack America’s national parks. They are responsible for decades of budget and staffing cuts for national parks and other public lands.
Working at national parks during Trump’s first term, I witnessed the disappointment my colleagues felt over the months and years after his election, as our budgets and staff continued to be cut, as the big funding push that many had hoped for after the centennial didn’t arrive.
I heard the outrage when federal hiring was frozen the moment Trump took office, when he ordered us to no longer use the term “climate change,” when he took our funding to pay for a parade in honor of himself.
I sat in my park house for five weeks without pay during the government shutdown Trump orchestrated in 2019, when he forced national parks to stay open with barely any staff. I heard the sadness and frustration my colleagues felt during those weeks while watching destruction of park property, trash piling up, people defecating in front of closed restrooms.
But never, not once, did I hear another park ranger I worked with give up hope.
I no longer work in national parks, but I write about them and talk often to park rangers. And now, even with all the chaos and firings in America’s national parks, I am still hearing the same messages.
“This is the time. This is it–they are going to see how hard we work and they are going to care! They are going to see how vital our parks are, and they will write their representatives! You’ll see!”
Hope. The rangers I speak to still have hope.
Hope is not naive, by the way. It is rooted in reality. Hope is seeing what isn’t working and still daring to dream of something better.
The rangers I speak to give me hope. They still believe that the American people love and want to support national parks just like they do. Despite all the setbacks, all the attacks against their character, their jobs, and the parks they love, the national parks rangers I know are still hopeful that things will get better.
It is up to all of us to make their hopes into a reality. Those of us who don’t work in national parks have to do our part now. It is time for us to stand up and prove to the park staff that they are correct–now is the time. The American people do love our national parks, and we will act to support them.
Inspired to support national parks? Check out this essay about how to support them.