Trump is laying the groundwork to privatize America’s national parks | Jonathan B Jarvis and Gary Machlis

May 12, 2025

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Americans adore our park system. But the president appears ready to cut its budget and let it fail

Theodore Roosevelt, to whom Donald Trump has likened himself, used his executive power to double the size of the national park system and expand protection of American natural landscapes and historic landmarks. He strongly supported a merit-based civil service that now includes the 100-year-old National Park Service (NPS).

This small agency (its 2020 budget was one-fifteenth of one percent of the overall federal budget) has as its mission preserving “unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations”. Public surveys repeatedly show that Americans rank the National Park Service the highest among all federal agencies. Last year there were over 330 million visits to the parks, more than professional baseball, football, basketball and the Disney amusement parks combined.

Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. What you can do is to keep it for your children, your children’s children, and for all who come after you, as one of the great sights which every American if he can travel at all should see.

Jonathan B Jarvis served as the 18th director of the National Park Service. Gary Machlis served as science adviser to the NPS director from 2009 to 2017. They are co-authors of The Future of Conservation in America: A Chart for Rough Water, published in 2018.