National Park Week Is Here. The Lands Around Them Are Under Attack.
Now is not a time to be sharing sunsets and pretending nothing is wrong
Today is a special day, it’s Earth Day and it’s National Park Week. Normally this is a time for posting trail photos and nature quotes, celebrating how lucky we are to have places like Yellowstone and Yosemite, and how wonderful it is that we had the foresight to protect them.
But this year feels very different doesn’t it?
Yes, our national parks are still protected by law. There won’t be logging trucks in Glacier or oil rigs in Grand Teton. You won’t see an open pit mine at the base of Half Dome. But the same can’t be said for the rest of America’s public lands.
Our national parks are just the face of the system, the ones with the postcards and souvenir shops. There are only 63 of them. But America’s public lands stretch far beyond that. National forests. National monuments. BLM lands. They’re the backbone of this country’s wild places and they're being dismantled in front of our eyes.
Right now, this administration is using obscure legal loopholes, bogus emergency declarations, and sheer bureaucratic attrition to fast-track drilling, logging, and mining on a scale not seen since the industrial revolution. They’re gutting environmental review, hollowing out the Endangered Species Act, and dismantling the very idea of public stewardship, all while the agencies responsible for these lands are bled dry and their staff purged.
That’s the backdrop for this year’s National Park Week. So no, we’re not lighting a campfire and singing songs about how beautiful everything is. We’re looking squarely at the wrecking ball swinging through our public lands and saying this is not okay.
It’s not okay that the Endangered Species Act is being ignored and dismantled.
It’s not okay that NEPA is being gutted so companies can tear through public lands unchecked.
It’s not okay that we’re stripping our own country for raw materials because we’ve insulted every ally we used to trade with.
It’s not okay that our public lands are being sold off to the highest bidder to make a few politically connected donors richer.
And this isn’t just about trees and wildlife. This is about who we are. This is about whether Americans will speak up when something they love is being taken from them in broad daylight.
And don’t say this is just politics. That it’s just how things go. This administration was not given a mandate to destroy public lands. That was never on the ballot. The American people do not support this.
So where are the voices in Congress who claim to care? Where’s the outrage? Where are the speeches on the floor of the House and Senate that say this is too far?
Co-sponsoring a doomed bill to signal your opposition is not enough. A quiet tweet is not enough. If you’re in office and you care about public lands, it’s time to stand up and be counted. Say it out loud. Say it in public. Force a vote. Block a nomination. Make noise.
Because if you don’t, the future is easy to see. Our national parks will become islands – beautiful, yes, but surrounded on all sides by extraction, decay, and loss. Museums of what we once valued, while everything else is sacrificed for quarterly profits and campaign checks.
We’re staring down the barrel of disaster. If this continues, there will be very little left to fight for. The laws will be gone. The forests will be logged. The land will be locked away or destroyed far beyond repair.
So don’t post your favorite trail photo this week and pretend everything’s fine. Don’t act like this is just another National Park Week. It’s not.
This year, stand up. Speak out. Say what so many people are feeling. Say it clearly, so it can’t be ignored.
We’re not okay with this.
We’re not okay with watching it all burn down.
And we’re not going to let it happen in silence.
Tune In: Be sure to join us Wednesday at 11am ET for a live in-depth discussion with
of The Land Desk. We’ll break down the biggest threats facing our public lands, what we can expect going forward, and what we can do about it all.
Thank you for fighting this difficult and lonely battle on behalf of all of us who enjoy these very special places and want to see them passed on to generations yet unborn. It was Martin Luther King jr. who once said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Our elected representatives lack the courage to do the right thing, but we know what motivates them. It’s fear! We need to put the fear of an enraged electorate into these cowards so that they’ll have no choice but to call a halt to the destructive efforts of an authoritarian government which cares nothing about most of us and is solely interested in pursuing policies beneficial to the one percent.
It makes me sick that our public lands have been monetized and viewed as 'Prime real estate'.
The notion that our public lands should be developed to ease the housing shortage is laughable. those seriously in need of housing will not end up living in paradise with 'killer views'. They won't. The developed land will be bought as vacation homes by the wealthy. Just more transfer of US resources to the oligarchs to the detriment of the average citizen.
Thank you for your stand.