By The Editorial Board
In 1872, the United States Congress passed a bill designating Yellowstone as the first National Park. President Woodrow Wilson created the National Park Service in 1916 to oversee the 35 National Parks at the time.
Since then, the National Park System (NPS) has grown to 433 sites in all 50 states. Of those 433, only 63 are considered “national parks” and many of the rest are monuments, battlefields or historic sites. In total, the NPS owns over 84 million acres of land nationwide.
As the national parks have been a crucial part of American history and culture, recent budget cuts are putting these monuments in significant jeopardy; however, few people are aware of this.
In the 2025 Federal Budget, passed during the Biden Administration, $3.6 billion was set aside for the NPS. The 2026 budget significantly reduces that amount to $2.1 billion. At the beginning of the year, roughly 20,000 people worked for the National Park Service. By July, 24% of the workforce had been let go. Despite this vast reduction, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum ordered the parks to remain open.
As a result, national parks are significantly struggling to stay maintained and open. The remaining workers have been stretched thin, working strenuously to ensure visitor services are available. According to the National Parks Conservation Association, Big Bend National Park has lost half of its employees. The Pioneer History Center at Yosemite National Park was forced to close this summer because artifacts had been stolen, due in part to reduced staffing.
For the most part, the budget cuts have yet to massively affect the visitor experience. But as more employees are laid off, parks may have to stop offering services or cease maintaining less popular hiking trails.
In July, President Trump signed an executive order entitled “Make Our National Parks Great Again.” The order increases the entrance fee for foreign visitors at the 100 sites that currently have one. The administration claims this increase will help the NPS and fund critical infrastructure projects. In reality, this could discourage foreign tourism and harm the NPS. If foreign tourism decreases, the fee increase could be transferred to American citizens.
The Federal shutdown has the potential to worsen the problem. In September, the Department of the Interior published the “National Park Service Contingency Plan for a Potential Lapse in Appropriations.” Most parks will remain open, but worker cuts will increase as time goes on. Park websites and social media will not be updated, nor will regular notices of road/trail closures be posted.
If the government remains shut down, the lack of regular notices could lead to catastrophic disasters. In the event of an avalanche or hazardous weather, visitors might not know until it is too late. Each national park normally provides daily weather forecasts, but this is not the case during the shutdown.
As noted in the plan, 9,296 of the 14,500 current NPS employees will be furloughed, leaving 5,200 people to oversee the care of 84 million acres of land.
In 2024, approximately 331 million people visited a site within the National Park System, a 6 million-person increase since 2023. Data from the NPS website shows visitation has increased nearly every year since 1916, with exceptions during wartime and COVID-19.
The Great Smoky National Park led all other parks, with 12.2 million visitors in 2024. Zion National Park and Grand Canyon National Park each had 4.9 million, Yellowstone had 4.7 million and Rocky Mountain National Park rounded out the top five with 4.1 million. On the other end of the spectrum, Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve had fewer than 12,000 visitors, making it the least-visited national park.
The NPS is an economic boom both nationally and for the regions around the park, known as “gateways.” Visitors to these regions contributed $29 billion to the economy in 2024, creating 340,000 jobs in the process.
National parks are a crucial part of American society and reducing funding only showcases the lack of care toward this country’s roots. Failing to protect our land ultimately means losing our legacy.
