Dear future park ranger,
As I’m writing this, America’s national parks and the national park rangers* who protect them are under threat. In the last two years, the current president and his administration have fired or forced out thousands of national park employees. These threats are not new; his political party has been working to defund national parks for decades, resulting in a National Park Service workforce that was already severely depleted of essential workers prior to these more recent cuts.
These politicians are dismantling national park sites and selling them off to corporations. They have declared their intent to erase national historical and cultural parks entirely, demanding that hundreds of sites declared by Congress or past presidents to be integral to American heritage be cut loose from all federal funding and dumped in the laps of state or local historical societies.
These politicians are also attempting to censor national park sites of scientifically and historically accurate information. They ordered the removal of Pride flags and any mention of trans activists from Stonewall National Monument. They have tried to remove the names of enslaved people from the exhibits at Independence National Historical Park.
These politicians are currently bulldozing a wide swath of Big Bend National Park. They have paid $1.7 billion taxpayer dollars to a company with ties to the White House and the Republican Party to construct a wall in a place where nature has already built its own barriers–canyon walls 1500 feet high, mountains rising over 7000 feet, and a desert spanning thousands of miles through which no sane person would ever walk. (That $1.7 billion is roughly half of the annual $3.3 billion budget allotted by Congress to operate the entire national park system, by the way.)
A certain group of politicians, paid by a certain group of super-wealthy individuals and their corporations, are orchestrating a war on America’s national parks. Why are they doing this? They are attempting to steal money from the American people in the form of government contracts. They are also trying to steal the parks themselves, for resource extraction or private development. They see the wealth of America’s national parks, and they want that wealth for themselves.
By this point, future park ranger, you may be wondering why I am telling you this. You may be wondering how you will become a park ranger at all, with so few jobs remaining and with so many parks under attack.
I must admit, I have wondered this myself. As a former national park ranger, I witnessed national parks hemorrhage staff over the course of my career. I saw remaining staff working harder with fewer resources, unable to manage the parks in the way they once did or often in the ways that these venerable sites deserve.
I once stood in the office of a maintenance supervisor as he teared up, telling me that he just didn’t have the staff any more to get everything done. His park was not the only one slowly falling to pieces–the NPS maintenance backlog (meaning the estimated cost of fixing all the broken things in national parks) stands as of this writing at over $24 billion, which far exceeds the agency’s yearly $3.3 billion budget or any other additional funds which have as yet been injected into our ailing national parks.
America’s national parks, the first national parks on Earth and some of the most cherished and spectacular places in the world, are wounded. They are limping along, and there is a pack of wealthy hunters preparing to strike them down.
By this point, you may be certain that I am going to tell you that you should abandon any dreams you have of being a park ranger. That you should give up and do something else. “There are no jobs for you. There are no parks for you. Go see if one of these rich vultures can give you a job helping pick the carcasses of national parks clean.”
But no, this is absolutely not the advice I am going to give. Instead, I am going to encourage you to feel what I feel still, even in the face of all of this disappointment. I am going to share with you my unwavering hope.
National parks were born as an idea, and that idea is not dead. Try as they might, the uber-wealthy and the politicians they pay to do their bidding have not killed the national park. In fact, they have only strengthened the love that the American people have for their national parks.
Seeing their public lands under threat has sparked some fervor within Americans that had lain dormant for too long. National parks are ridiculously, almost comically, popular across all US demographics, but these recent attacks have only elevated their polling numbers even more.
Americans are more supportive of national parks and other public lands than they were even a couple years ago. They are more supportive of those employed to manage those public lands. They are more supportive of park rangers.
All of these attacks on national parks and park rangers are wildly unpopular. And so, instead of despairing, I propose that we wait. We wait for the pendulum to swing, the political energy to shift, and for the will of the American people to be enacted.
And what happens then? When America’s national parks are fully funded and thriving again, as Americans want them to be? What happens then?
Well that is when, you, future park ranger, will be ready to step in. You will be ready to rebuild them, with your skills and your talents and your effort. When the national parks are ready for you, you will be there.
There may be no jobs now, but there will be so many jobs in the future. There may be no money now, but one day there will be enough to fix all the broken things.
Rangers will be needed to stitch Big Bend back together. Rangers will be needed to teach real history and real science again at our park sites. Rangers will be needed to restore our national parks, just as they were needed when the parks were first created.
My advice to you is to not give up on your dream of being a park ranger, but instead imagine what role you’d like to play in their rebirth. Learn those skills, that science, that history, all of which can be applied to other careers for however long you need to wait.
But if you love national parks, if you feel them in your soul, if working in them is your calling, then don’t despair. Learn, be patient, and fight on their behalf. Answer the call to fight for them now. And answer the call to rebuild them and caretake them, when it comes.
*While the term “park ranger” is often used to refer to certain types of park employees like law enforcement or interpretive rangers, for the purposes of this essay, I am using “park ranger” to refer to all national park employees.
Want to learn more about being a park ranger? Read our essay How To Become A National Park Ranger.
Inspired to support America’s public lands? Here are five ways you can help.