Americans’ already-limited access to the outdoors faces further curbs.
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NEWSLETTER | MAY 9, 2025
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Trump’s Public Lands Grab
Last Sunday, I woke up to the sound of waves and birdsong on a ridge a few hundred feet above the Pacific Ocean. I’d spent the night camping with my family on Mount Tamalpais, a distant view of San Francisco to one side, and endless ocean to the other. We’d snagged a last-minute reservation at a campsite not too far from our home, and it easily ranked among the most beautiful places I’ve ever spent the night.
The trip was a long time coming. We’d been trying to book a campsite for ages, but reservations in nearby state and national parks open up months in advance and they often fill within minutes. We only managed to get this spot thanks to an app that alerts us to cancellations.
Demand to spend time in the outdoors is high. That is, undoubtedly, a good thing. What’s not so great, however, is that already-limited access to public lands is declining amid recent federal staffing cuts. Here in California, Yosemite National Park just announced the closure of a key backpacking campground. Wyoming’s popular Devils Tower National Monument has drastically cut the number of hours it is open to the public. And the Army Corp of Engineers has announced campground and other facility closures at lakes it manages in Pennsylvania, Washington state, South Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, and Kansas.
These types of cutbacks may just be the tip of the iceberg. Last week, the Trump administration released its 2026 budget plan. Included? More than $1 billion in cuts to the National Park Service, which the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association says would eliminate funding for roughly 350 of the country’s 433 national parks. Not to mention the administration’s plans to mine, log, drill, and otherwise sell off the country’s public lands. As if that weren’t enough, in some cases the Department of Government Efficiency is also explicitly eying cuts to accessibility initiatives, like a grant ([link removed]) to better to accommodate children with disabilities at a park in Washington state.
What makes all this even harder to stomach is that, even before all this belt-tightening, access to our public lands was far from equitable. The barriers to entry for lower-income communities and communities of color are many.
It will be hard to come back from these sweeping blows to our public lands. But environmental groups, unions, and local governments are all taking a stand, perhaps most notably via a large coalition lawsuit ([link removed]) over the massive government layoffs. Here’s to hoping they prevail. Preservation of our shared lands, and our public access to them, hangs in the balance.
Zoe Loftus-Farren
Managing Editor, Earth Island Journal
Photo by Andrew Kearns ([link removed])
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