Since taking office in January, President Trump’s administration has fired nearly a quarter, or 24%, of the National Park Service’s workforce.
Now the White House is planning to shed even more parks workers.
The U.S. Department of the Interior will “imminently abolish” more than 2,000 employees across the agency, including hundreds of people working at the National Park Service (NPS), the agency said in a Monday legal filing shared with GearJunkie. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s planned staff cuts include 272 NPS staff in regional offices and positions directly supporting maintenance projects and cultural and natural resource protection.
The filings were submitted in response to a federal court order, which came after a judge temporarily blocked the administration’s attempt to lay off thousands of federal workers during the ongoing government shutdown.
The numbers reported include only certain union-represented employees under the current court order. That means the overall number of planned staff reductions is likely much larger, according to an analysis by the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA).
“Under Secretary Burgum’s watch, the Park Service has already lost more than a quarter of its permanent staff, leaving parks dangerously understaffed and unprotected,” said Theresa Pierno, president and CEO for the NPCA.
Dwindling Staff at NPS
President Trump has followed through on promises to reduce the number of workers in the federal government. This year will likely end with 300,000 fewer federal workers — the largest single-year decline in civilian federal employment since World War II.
The federal workers who manage the country’s public lands have not been immune from these cuts. In February, park advocates called the firings of 4,500 parks workers a “Valentine’s Day massacre.” Those layoffs led to widespread protests at national parks this spring.
In May, another 1,600 employees were pulled from the NPS and transferred into the Department of the Interior. That move “hollowed out critical functions at national parks and raised serious concerns about the agency’s ability to operate and communicate effectively,” according to the NPCA.
Now, those same staff face the risk of termination, along with even more employees who support maintenance projects and natural resources in national parks across the country, according to the legal documents filed in California this week.
The White House also mandated that national parks remain open even during the ongoing government shutdown. Some national parks, like Yosemite and Joshua Tree, have already seen fires and illegal behavior from the lack of park employees.
At many others, locals have stepped up and volunteered to help preserve the parks — and the visitor experience — as they struggle to maintain services while the vast majority of employees remain furloughed. Parks advocates at the NPCA warned that these cuts could break an already overwhelmed park service.
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