National Park Story No Walk in the Park, Post-Budget Cuts

A National Park Service ranger leads hikers at the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument in Montana in July 2024. Proposed budget cuts may leave national parks understaffed, poorly maintained and less accessible. Photo: National Park Service/Peter Carbonell (United States government work).

TipSheet: National Park Story No Walk in the Park, Post-Budget Cuts

By Joseph A. Davis

Summer is coming, and millions of tourists are headed for national parks. But with Trump/GOP budget cuts planned, will they be disappointed?

Short answer: Yes. National park stories are an old standby for environmental journalists. This year is sure to be different. It could be a disaster story, one that is likely not far from you.

 

Why it matters

Americans love their national parks and show it by visiting them in hordes. Trump cuts will make this harder — with political consequences even MAGA Republicans can understand.

Understaffed, poorly maintained and less accessible parks will frustrate young backpackers and seniors in Airstreams alike. It’s hardly a red vs. blue thing. More like a red, white and blue thing.

As this TipSheet is being written, Congress and the Trump White House have not finished deciding on spending for the years ahead. But steep, perhaps fatal cuts to national parks look likely. The coming weeks will tell. The people who actually run the units of the National Park System are close to despair.

Forget “America the Beautiful” patriotism. Forget nature-loving crunchiness. National parks and their local economies amount to big business. Jobs, profits and property values are all at stake.

National parks are also a political third rail.

 

The backstory

You can go to Ken Burns to get most of the backstory. It goes back even beyond Teddy Roosevelt to people like Henry David Thoreau. The first national park, Yellowstone, was established in 1872. The National Park Service was established in 1916.

Over the years, many other sites were added to the National Park System. Today, there are 63 true national parks.

But there are a total of 433 separate units in the National Park System, covering more than 85 million acres in all 50 states. All kinds of units: military battlefields and grave sites, seashores, lakeshores, rivers, trails, recreation areas, parkways and more. The official list is here.

The Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service also manages more than 567 National Wildlife Refuge System units. Those draw visitors, too.

 

National parks tend to attract

and support local businesses

of many kinds, adding jobs and

dollars to local economies.

 

National parks tend to attract and support local businesses of many kinds, adding jobs and dollars to local economies. They may include hotels, restaurants, gas stations, tackle shops, bike or kayak rentals, guide services and more.

A drop-off in park visitations usually brings a drop in local economies.

 

Story ideas

• Find the parks near your audience area. Are they popular? Remote? Seasonal? What are their special features? Talk to the superintendent’s office about visitation numbers and budget numbers. What do they expect for the coming year?
• Is your local park unit able to hire the number of seasonal workers it normally needs? How will this affect the visitor experience?
• Does your park allow or require reservations or timed entry? How is this changing in response to this year’s slim or uncertain funding?
• How is the maintenance of your local park? Roads? Buildings? Trails? Campgrounds? Is there a backlog? Is it being addressed? What are the budgetary impacts?
• How are the interpretive services at your park? Do visitor centers have enough staff to answer questions and highlight park features?
• Are there entry fees at your park? Are they going up or down? Do they cover the costs of running the park?
• What do your federal, state and local politicians think about your park’s funding situation?
• Does the interpretation at your park address or avoid issues like climate change, racial equity, Native American rights, endangered species and others? Has this interpretation changed in the Trump era?

 

Reporting resources

• National Park Service: This subagency of the Interior Department manages the National Park System.
• National Parks Conservation Association: This nonprofit NGO advocates for funding and preservation of national parks.
• National Parks Traveler: This free online publication is perhaps the only independent journalistic voice covering the National Park System.
• National Recreation and Park Association: This nonprofit NGO advocates for all kinds of parks: federal, state and local. Its large membership includes park and recreation professionals.
• National Park Foundation: This private-sector semiofficial National Park Service partner is the nongovernmental entity that raises funds to supplement user fees and federal funding.
• Local and state “friends” groups: Many national parks have local groups formed to support them in various ways. Varies by park site.

[Editor’s Note: For more about reporting on national parks, see Backgrounders on planning stories around our nation’s green spaces and challenges to public lands, and TipSheets on covering national parks near you, air pollution and climate change in parks, park maintenance backlog and grazing on public lands. Also check out features on former interior secretary Stewart Udall, who founded several parks, and on using forest tracking data to report on land cover change. And be sure to keep up with national parks-related headlines from EJToday and SEJ.org with this search.]

Joseph A. Davis is a freelance writer/editor in Washington, D.C. who has been writing about the environment since 1976. He writes SEJournal Online's TipSheet, Reporter's Toolbox and Issue Backgrounder, and curates SEJ's weekday news headlines service EJToday and @EJTodayNews. Davis also directs SEJ's Freedom of Information Project and writes the WatchDog opinion column.

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* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 10, No. 24. Content from each new issue of SEJournal Online is available to the public via the SEJournal Online main page. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. And see past issues of the SEJournal archived here.