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Leaders from Colorado conservation groups and the Center for Western Priorities called on President Donald Trump, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and Colorado’s congressional delegation to stop attacking and instead fully fund America’s parks and public lands.
At a live taping of The Landscape podcast, the Keep Parks Public tour highlighted the ongoing threats to American public lands, including increased risk of catastrophic wildfire, limited access to educational programming in the parks, diminished earnings for local businesses, and pollution brought from companies seeking to extract natural resources.
Across the country, funding and staffing shortages have left national parks, monuments, and forests scrambling to serve summer visitors. At Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in Colorado, all custodial staff have been terminated, and a third of the park’s 74 positions remain vacant. At the nearby Curecanti National Recreation Area, four out of ten campgrounds were closed due to short staffing. Colorado’s White River National Forest—the most-visited forest in the country—lost 43 full-time employees, a 29 percent reduction of its staff.
“I worry about safety issues, fire issues and then just long-term stewardship issues, fire mitigation, wildlife habitat protection, taking care of our trails, taking care of our recreation sites,” said Scott Fitzwilliams, former supervisor of Colorado's White River National Forest.
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Our national parks, forests, and monuments belong to all Americans... From Black Canyon of the Gunnison to the White River National Forest, the Trump administration is causing irreparable harm to Colorado, to the dedicated federal workers who care for our public lands, and the communities that depend on them for economic survival.”
