NATIONAL PARKS ALERT: Department of Interior wants to commercialize our National Parks. We need to gather 15,000 messages before the end of 2019 to stop this plan »

Picture this, friend:

Our National Parks — including the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Shenandoah — open to more private corporations looking to make a profit. When you enter Zion National Park, you’re greeted by a fast food truck — and empty wrappers littering the grounds. Once quiet campsites inside Grand Teton are now traffic jams filled with Amazon trucks dropping off packages.

This could be our reality as soon as 2020 if the Department of Interior's “Made in America” Outdoor Recreation Advisory Committee has their way. Interior Secretary Bernhardt created this committee of corporate insiders — and unsurprisingly, their suggestions are about making more money, not improving park access. If we don’t speak out, the Department of the Interior could soon privatize huge parts of our National Parks.

Here’s the scariest part: Bernhardt and Trump are hoping to move these plans forward without any public input. That’s why it’s so important we speak out now. We need to make sure the Trump administration hears how deeply opposed the public is to this terrible plan — and we need to be louder than the corporate insiders who are pushing to profit off our parks.

Will you join LCV supporters across the country and send an urgent message to the Department of Interior now?

Stop the Trump administration from commercializing our National Parks »

Bernhardt’s plans don’t stop there. They include major plans to turn our parks system into a money-making machine, including:

• Reducing — or even ELIMINATING — discounts that make National Park entrance fees more affordable for seniors.
• Encouraging food trucks and big corporations to sell food, souvenirs, and other items at park facilities.
• Allowing Amazon to deliver packages — and even have pickup locations —on park grounds

Let’s be clear: Any of these proposed changes would deeply hurt our National Parks and give private companies — not a government agency that is accountable to the people — more control over OUR public places.

What's more, these changes could make trips to our National Parks even more expensive and out-of-reach for families across the country — especially for low-wealth families and seniors. We should be doing everything we can to make our public lands more accessible to the public — not to private companies. 

The good news is that Interior Secretary Bernhardt is still considering these proposals. If we can show the Trump administration just how strongly the public is opposed to this plan, we can make these proposals too politically toxic to move forward. We need to send the message loud and clear to the Trump administration that we won’t stand by as they make our treasured parks look like shopping malls.

Our National Parks belong to all of us. Stop the Trump administration from giving them away to corporations »

Thank you for all that you do to protect our parks.

Elizabeth Jacob
Associate Digital Campaigns Manager
League of Conservation Voters