The Trump administration has issued an order that requires that all national parks remain open in the middle of severe personnel shortage, an action that a conservation group called “reckless and out of contact” as park staff prepares for millions of visitors this summer.
“This order is intended to ensure that all national parks and national historical sites, administered by the Department of the Interior …, remain open and accessible to the benefit and enjoyment of the US people and to ensure that the National Parks Service (NPS) provides the best customer service experience for all visitors”, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum wrote in a note on Thursday.
The mandate requires that any closure or reduction of hours at the park sites be reviewed for the first time by the Director of the National Parks and Assistant Secretary of Fish, Wildlife and Parks for approval.
The Order raised immediate concerns for Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association. In a statement, Brengel described the order “another attempt at the administration to set aside the experience of the dedicated personnel of the park.”
The association said that any decision to close parks sites is determined by personnel levels, weather and maintenance needs. Demanding officials to first obtain approval before closing the services would create an unnecessary bureaucracy network for those who know parks better.
“It is a microgestion in the worst case, creating more bureaucracy when the park personnel already stretches dangerously thin and deals with the season of maximum visits,” said Brengel. “This order is reckless and out of contact.”
The National Parks Service reported a record of more than 331 million visitors last year to 433 units of individual parks and 63 national parks, says the directive. But the order occurs after President Trump cut about 1,000 workers of the National Parks Service this year, with many more hundreds taking purchases.
These reductions have put the popular Federal Agency, in charge of the management of the dear California sites from the Golden Gate National Recreation Area to Joshua Tree and National Parks of Yosemite, in critically low personnel numbers that will make it extremely more difficult to welcome visitors and maintain the parks. The cuts could mean that fewer workers will be available to collect input rates, clean bathrooms or help with search and rescue operations.
The association. Of National Park Rangers has warned that more cuts are possible and that the hamstrings are the hamstrings of the ability of the service to protect the lands and ensure that they remain accessible to all.
“Despite the value and benefit that national parks provides to Americans, [workers] They systematically steal their skills to fulfill their mission, ”said the president of the association, Rick Mossman, in a March statement.
