US National Parks Just Broke a Visitation Record. It’s Going to Be a Huge Problem This Summer.
Most people are pro-conservation. We just differ on the degree to which we prioritize it against other issues.
The United States National Park Service (NPS) recently released its 2024 park visitation data, reporting 331.9 million recreation visits across the 433 sites managed by the agency. It’s a record high for the agency, which has counted visitors numbers since 1929. The previous visitation record was set in 2016, with 330,971,689 visits to NPS sites.
The US currently has a population of about 340 million, making this number about the equivalent of every person in the country visiting one NPS-managed site in 2024. Nearly 30 national parks set individual visitation records, and 38 parks had more visitors than the 10-year average for every month of 2024.
This surge in popularity couldn’t have come at a worse time.
In the first two months of 2024, the Trump Administration has taken dozens of actions seen as anti-conservation and anti-protected land with a scale and impact never seen in modern US history. Many of these actions will likely be challenged in federal and state courts, and some will be deemed to have no legal standing. However, legal challenges can take years to play out, while the negative effects of the recent actions are being felt immediately.
The most dramatic action has been firing approximately 1,000 National Park Service employees, and giving another 700 a resignation offer. In total, NPS lost 1,700 full-time career employees, or about 9 percent of the total NPS workforce. The government fired another 3,400 employees in the US Forest Service, representing about 10 percent of the workforce there. Among those dismissed were specialists with unique skills: Yosemite National Park lost its only locksmith, responsible for managing hundreds of keys to various facilities, and Devils Postpile National Monument lost its sole emergency medical technician. In early March, the administration flip-flopped and announced plans to hire approximately 7,700 seasonal employees — though many of the HR departments responsible for those hirings were fired, according to FOX News. Conservationists worry that these part-time seasonal roles are unlikely to fill the gaps in institutional knowledge lost by firing career employes.
Public lands have been underfunded and understaffed for decades
These policy changes come at a time when national parks are already struggling — not just against the increasing weight of tourism, but against an already under-funded system. Since 2010, NPS’s full-time staff has decreased by 20 percent, while visitation has gone up 16 percent. During Trump and Biden’s first terms, park personnel were already sounding the alarm on the risk to public lands.
In August 2024 (under the Biden Administration), Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) raised specific concerns about law enforcement staffing within the National Park Service. “The ranks of law enforcement rangers and special agents protecting our national parks have declined to the lowest level this century,” a PEER paper reads, adding that the proposed budget cuts, which were later approved by Congress, would further exacerbate this problem. President Biden gave lip service to protecting old-growth trees and forests in public lands, but failed to act when the US Forest Service undertook logging measures widely seen by conservationists as being too heavy-handed.
The operational impacts of the flurry of actions in 2025 to date have been immediate. Yosemite National Park delayed its summer campground reservations by a month, raising concerns about the environmental impact of having less oversight and regulation of campers in the Yosemite Valley. Great Smoky Mountains National Park advised guests to rethink visiting, citing staffing shortages that left it unable to properly clean up after Hurricane Helene. Traffic backed up for more than half a mile on President’s Day Weekend in Springdale, Utah — Zion National Park’s gateway town — when staffing cuts forced the park to close all but one park gate. Saguaro National Park announced its visitor centers would be closed on Mondays “until further notice” due to staffing shortages
More important than the short-term impact to visitation is the long-term environmental impacts to America’s public lands. They’ll likely suffer not just due to staffing and budget cuts, but due to other actions of the last two months. That includes terminating 34 National Park Service leases (closing at least eight visitors centers) and signing an executive order directing the US Forest Service to “devise methods to promote increased timber production,” and to exempt “timber thinning” and “timber salvage” activities from the National Environmental Policy Act — meaning they can move forward without a review of their environmental impacts. It also included permission for federal agencies to use emergency provisions within the Endangered Species Act to bypass rules designed to protect endangered species.
Trump also removed the US from the Paris Accord (an international treaty designed to combat climate change), and appointed the former CEO of a lumber company as the director of the US Forest Service. A federal spending freeze order left park rangers unable to buy toilet paper for visitor centers or gas for park rangers’ vehicles.
Combined, these actions mean less research and less on-the-ground protection for endangered flora and fauna; less regulation of, and ability to respond to, illegal behavior in the backcountry; fewer rangers available for rescue when people get hurt; more trash and pollution piling up in parks; less trail and facility maintenance; and, likely, a general deterioration of the health of public lands, as was seen during the 2019 government shutdown that lasted for for just 35 days. During that shutdown, endangered trees that take 300 years to grow were chopped down. Parks that were open but understaffed reported overflowing bathrooms and trash pile ups. Roads weren’t maintained. Marine animals suffered and water stopped being tested for toxic chemicals.
Both parties care about protecting public lands
It was Republican president Richard Nixon who created the Environmental Protection Agency, pushed for and signed into law the successful Endangered Species Act, and signed proclamations officially creating Redwood National and State Parks, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and Gateway National Recreation Area. Photo: Steve Olson/Shutterstock
Yes, I’m pro conservation — but so are most people. We just differ on the degree to which we prioritize it against other issues. And yes, some of the seasonal staff who will be hired (if they’re able to be hired) can collect trash and issue permits for campgrounds. But the concerns raised over the last decade, especially during the last two months, are going to hurt everyone, regardless of how you vote. Everyone has access to use public lands (and many do as the numbers show), and maintaining them for public use shouldn’t be a partisan issue. Both Democrats and and Republicans want to breathe clean air and have places to go camping and hiking with their families. Making public lands private hurts every American equally, and helps only private companies, which kick the public off the land to extract and sell the resources back to Americans.
States that voted Republican in 2024 have 41 national parks, while blue states have just 22. Public lands serve as vital training grounds for US military forces, and more than 4,800 US Forest Service employees are veterans. Both Democrats and Republicans should be able to advocate for basic environmental preservation without being publicly attacked or worrying they’ll lose their jobs.
(@national_parks_traveler)
That’s likely why the public response to the cuts has been largely negative. Polling from Data for Progress found that only 10 percent of voters support decreasing federal funding for national parks and forests. An overwhelming majority support either increasing funding (30 percent), or keeping the budget the same (53 percent). Two-thirds of likely voters reported being “very” or “somewhat” concerned about these staffing cuts, including 70 percent of independent voters and 50 percent of Republicans. Many members of the public may also be concerned about the financial losses that will arise from cuts to public lands. In 2023, the National Park System generated $55.6 billion for the national economy, supporting 415,400 jobs and providing $19.4 billion in labor income.
Also easy to understand the heightened risks of forest fires caused by logging. Non-partisan and bi-partisan sources like the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and the peer-reviewed Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project found that logging increases the spread and severity of wildfires. “Timber harvesting removes the relatively large diameter wood that can be converted into wood products, but leaves behind the small material, especially twigs and needles,” the 2000 CRS report states. “The concentration of these ‘fine fuels’ on the forest floor increases the rate of spread of wildfires.” (The full report is not available online.) When fires do arise, staffing cuts will make it harder to fight them.
What can be done?
Volunteers in Olympic National Park. Photo: National Park Service/Ian Shriner
America is a democracy, and that means you can and should tell your elected representatives what you think. Hundreds of articles on ways to make your voice heard are available online, from calling your elected officials to donating to causes and advocating for what you believe in. But there are some things you can do on-the-ground in national parks and forests this summer to help ease the burden visitation will have on the environment this summer.
- Pack out your trash: One of the most significant ways visitors can reduce their impact is by taking full responsibility for their waste. With maintenance staff reduced, parks will struggle to keep up with trash collection and facility cleaning. If you can collect and dispose of your trash elsewhere, it’ll relieve pressure on national parks and hopefully counter the reckless visitors who leave their trash sitting outside trashcans (which is both illegal and extremely harmful to wildlife).
- Leave it better than you found it: Carry a trash bag with you while visiting parks and pick up trash you find, even if it isn’t yours. The goal is to leave the park cleaner than you found it.
- Stop pooping in the woods: Some parks have started requiring that overnight backcountry users carry out their waste, as poop is becoming a big problem (and that’s not just for national parks, as seen in California beach camping bans and trail closures in Hawai’i). Do your part to make sure the problem doesn’t get worse by carrying WAG bags on backpacking trips. If you run out, properly dispose of human waste in catholes at least six inches deep and at least 200 feet from water sources, camp areas, and trails
- Reduce your dependence on visitor centers: Visitor center staff are likely to be stretched thin. The more you can download park maps, trail information, and safety guidance before your trip, the better. On the National Park Service App, you can download complete information about every park, so you have all the info you’ll need even without service.
- Spend money: Buy that t-shirt from the park non-profit. Drop a few bucks in the donation box on your way out. Round up your restaurant bill to give to the local fire and rescue group. Parks funds will also be stretched thin, and any extra you as a visitor can give to help fill that gap will go a long way.
- Volunteer: Nearly every site in the National Park System welcomes volunteers and has organized park clean-up events. Do an online search to find one near you, then go to it and tell all your friends to do the same.
- Speak up if you see something wrong: When you see a fellow park goer doing something wrong, speak up. Camping without a permit or walking off-trail may not seem like a huge issue, but it becomes one when thousands of people are doing it. Politely letting your fellow campers know they’ve left food sitting out or didn’t extinguish their fire properly can keep animals alive and prevent massive forest fires. If you see someone committing a serious crime like disturbing wildlife, vandalizing a site, or starting illegal fires, record the location and time, and try to take a photo if you can. That can help parks enforce the rules and issue fines and fees that go back into park coffers.
