Updated June 23, 2025 at 7:01 PM CDT
The National Park Service is facing an uncertain future with the potential to lose hundreds of millions in funding as Congress debates the budget reconciliation bill to fund President Trump's agenda.
Park rangers and members of the National Parks Conservation Association warn that staff shortages and cuts are already putting fragile ecosystems at risk, and hurting local economies.
"The administration is working in overdrive to essentially deceive the public into thinking that things are OK at our parks," said Neal Desai, Pacific region director with the National Parks Conservation Association.
The impact of understaffing ripples well beyond park boundaries. The national park system supports more than 400,000 jobs in surrounding communities, largely in the hospitality and restaurant industries. In southern California, there's a growing concern.
Susan Burnett, who owns the Mojave Sands Motel in Joshua Tree, California, said the uncertainty and lack of clear communication are already hurting her business.
"At any given time of the year, between 25 and 40% of my business is international travelers," said Burnett, "I have had less than 10 international travelers this spring season, which is incredibly low. And I believe it's a direct result of Trump in this administration and the things they're saying to people from other countries."
Polls consistently show Americans across the political spectrum rate the National Park Service as the most trusted federal agency. Despite accounting for less than 1% of the federal budget, the Park Service delivers significant economic returns. In 2023, visitor spending contributed more than $55 billion to the U.S. economy, according to a Department of Interior report.
"It's tough to tell how anyone can see this as smart politics to mess around with our national parks," said Desai, "they should actually be promoted as a model of efficiency. How much economic return they bring into our local communities and support jobs and economy."
On the ground, those economic and ecological pressures are translating into threats to clean water and wildlife.
A park ranger in Joshua Tree, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation and the possibility of losing his job, said staff are being actively silenced.
"Under normal circumstances, it would be totally easy and allowed for me to talk to a journalist about how much I love this national park and how important it is to preserve it. Nowadays, we're stifled, and we're afraid to speak," he said.
The ranger said many colleagues have been fired or accepted the government's deferred resignation offer. The result, he said, is less morale for productivity.
"Try telling a park ranger who works and sweats all day that their job is low productivity. People that have worked for this park for 20, 25 years, they're looking around and saying, 'I'm going to go find another job.' It's because they're so beaten down by this onslaught of attacks on the mission of the Park Service."
NPR reached out to the National Park Service for an interview. In a written statement, the Office of Public Affairs said, "It's not unusual or unique to this year for questions to come up about staffing or for the staffing needs to fluctuate. As in other years, we are working hard to make it another great year for visitors."
But park staff warn that having fewer rangers on duty is more than a staffing issue, it's a safety issue.
"This is the time of year when people die in the desert because people's bodies aren't adjusted and adjusted for that heat," the ranger who spoke on condition of anonymity, said "we're at risk of having those kinds of tragedies occur because there are fewer people out protecting you." The statement from the Park Service urged visitors to plan ahead and directed people to an NPS link about how to prevent heat-related illnesses.
In addition to visitor safety, the ranger says that the protection of the park's ecosystems is also being neglected — including the conservation efforts of biologists and archaeologists — potentially threatening ecosystems already vulnerable to climate change.
"You might visit a place that you visited 20 years ago and you might say, 'Hey, this doesn't look like what I remembered.' And that might be because a wildfire burned through and we didn't have staff on hand to stop that wildfire," the ranger said.
The ranger added the government's efforts to reshape the Park Service appear to ignore why people visit these places in the first place.
He said, "they don't see the economic value, the cultural value, the biodiversity of these places are all the same thing. It's all wrapped up in this one thing we call a national park that is such a huge part of what makes America beautiful."
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