Protesters flood national parks to express outrage over job cuts
As a steady stream of people marched through Yosemite National Park, homemade signs held high over their heads, they echoed a single unifying message: “Protect our parks.”
As a steady stream of people marched through Yosemite National Park, homemade signs held high over their heads, they echoed a single unifying message: “Protect our parks.”
From the Grand Canyon to the Rocky Mountains to Yellowstone and beyond, thousands gathered at national parks across the country on Saturday to protest sweeping federal cuts to the United States’ historic public lands.
In recent weeks, President Donald Trump’s administration fired around 2,000 recently hired employees at the U.S. Forest Service and slashed an additional 1,000 jobs at the National Park Service.
The mass terminations, part of an ongoing push to cut federal bureaucracy and spending, have raised concerns about the future of these lands. Affected national park and forest employees told NBC News that fewer workers will lead to longer lines, filthy bathrooms and unsafe hiking and camping conditions.
“We need to stop the nonsense,” John Goodwin, a now-retired longtime park service employee, told NBC Bay Area while protesting at Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco. “We need to hire back the people who were fired, not only at national parks but every federal employee who has lost their job in the last six weeks.”
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