Staff of American national parks in “survival mode” to keep the parks open in the middle of the Trump Cups | Trump administration

Through legendary but overloaded national parks from the United States, unusual scenes take place this summer following budget cuts in the Administration of Donald Trump. Archaeologists are in ticket office staff, environmentalists cover the visitors of visitors and the superintendents of the parks even clean the toilets.

The National Park Service (NPS), responsible for maintaining the deserts cherished and the sites of cultural importance of Yellowstone at the Statue of Liberty, lost a quarter of its permanent staff since Trump took office in January, the administration seeking to empty the budget of the service of a third party.

But the administration also ordered the parks to remain open and accessible to the public, which means that the NPS had to recruit the remaining staff in public oriented roles to maintain appearances at the crowd of visitors. This has indicated that a large part of the behind-the-scenes work to protect endangered species, fighting invasive plants, setting ruin infrastructure or planning the future needs of the natural wonders of the United States.

“It is almost impossible to play the role of leadership expected of me,” said a superintendent who runs a park in the western United States who did not want to be appointed for fear of the administration of the administration.

“I do everything now.

This type of sorting situation occurs on the 433 sites and 85 million acres – including 63 national parks and a range of battlefields, monuments and cultural sites – which make up the national park system in the United States, the current and old staff of multiple parks told The Guardian.

“It is frustrating to realize that you cannot execute your talents to be the best steward of these public resources because we are just trying to keep the parks open. We are just in survival mode,” said the park’s superintendent, who added that they plan to leave the NPS; Under Trump, more than 100 superintendents in the park have already left the service.

“For the public, it’s difficult to understand. People will say:” Why would you want to spoil national parks? They were going very well, they are the best idea in America. Why would you like to play with them? “”

In one of his first actions as president, Trump reduced NPS’s workforce by 1,000 people, an action known as “Valentine’s Day” at the agency, as part of a broader effort to reduce federal workforce. Thousands of others have left the park service from this slaughter via retirees or early resignations, while some of those who remain organized as “resistance rangers”, even launching an anonymous podcast.

Doug Burgum, interior secretary of Trump, said that the agency can be reduced while retaining services such as campsite, bathrooms and visitors. “I want more people in the parks, whether they are driving a snowflow in winter or working with [an] Interpreter in summer where they do trail work, “Burgum told an audience in the Senate in June.” I want more of this. I want less general costs.

But even if the staff are in a hurry in front line roles, gaps appear that criticism say that security can endanger. The 13 rescuers are vacant in the Iceland National Seashore Assatague in Maryland and Virginia, according to the Plaidoyer the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), a site where a man drowned last week.

The lack of staff includes more than 50 vacant stations, including management roles on three sites in the National Park in Boston, the loss of 60 employees of NPS regional offices in Alaska and the departure of all employees of Big Bend National Park in Texas, according to NPCA.

A Yosemite History Center was forced to close after several artifacts were stolen, a symptom of low staff, according to the association. He said that around 4,000 employees left in total, almost a quarter of the total NPS workforce, with potential reductions if the administration is advancing with mass layoffs, called a reduction in force.

“Some parks have lost up to a third of their staff and it is difficult or impossible to keep visitors’ leading services when it happens,” said John Garden, principal director of NPCA. Gardener said that some parks have shortened the hours of the visitors center, with long lines at the entrance doors and cuts to tasks that occur mainly from tourists, such as the police, archaeological and ecological works.

“It is not durable in the short term and certainly not in the long term when visitors are starting to notice the lack of maintenance and work on the landscapes,” said Garden.

“What is important for visitors are healthy ecosystems and cultural landscapes, while this administration sees these places more like theme parks than national parks. It is a scenario of Potemkin village where the public cannot see things collapse behind the scenes. ”

A current NPS employee who works at Yosemite said that the police are now so exaggerated that “people can destroy the park without consequences” and that visitors do potentially dangerous things such as not properly storing their food.

“This is a problem because we have bears here and we don’t want bears to eat people’s food because they can become aggressive,” said staff.

“I worry that the park is deteriorating to the point where security is a problem. I don’t think visitors still notice it, but they will do it soon. We all make jobs apart from the scope of our roles. People intensify to fill the gaps, but everyone is on the fast track to burn. ”

The Trump administration imposed a freeze on hiring at the NP, but allowed nearly 8,000 seasonal hires, although barely half of this total was carried out before the summer summit. Last year, a record of 331 million visits was made in national parks – a record – and a new high brand could be reached again in 2025.

“We have managed to hire thousands of seasonal and in most parks, the staff are tied last year,” said a spokesperson for the NPS.

“As in other years, we are working hard to make it another excellent year for visitors. Our employees are resolvers of experienced problems and it is not unusual for them to adapt to changing conditions. ”

“It is not unusual or unique this year for the employees of the National Park to bypass obstacles to ensure that we provide memorable experiences,” added the spokesperson on the cleaning toilets of the superintendent. “The Rangers have always worn several hats.”

The spokesperson added that the shortages of rescuers such as Assatague “are a national concern even outside our public lands” and said that it was important for people to understand the risks of the Riptides.

The emphasis on seasonal roles and posts devoted to the public threatens to redirect national parks to simple facades for tourists rather than lasting and rich places ecologically linked to local communities, warned park staff.

“Keeping these emblematic open places is a continuous process of protection, preservation and maintenance and it is scary and scary to think about what is eliminated with future planning,” said Marisa, who was an employee of the NPS of a regional support office until last month and did not want to give her a full name.

“The push is to maintain this facade for visitors that things are normal, but this is not the case. There is a targeting of the functions that support the agency.”

The national parks, widely loved by the American public and for a long time as a rare bastion of Bipartisans in a fractured country, were also trained in cultural wars by the Trump administration. Panels have been erected in each of the parks asking visitors to report any material “negative on past or living Americans or who do not emphasize the beauty, size and abundance of landscapes and other natural characteristics”.

The NPS will examine the signaling of these public comments and targeting “interpretation documents that emphasize the negative aspects of the history or historical figures of the United States,” said a spokesperson for the agency.

However, the park staff said that many responses, sent via a QR code on the panels, suggest that the public hesitates to eliminate uncomfortable truths such as the heritage of the United States of slavery or the abuse of the tribes.

“Are we so weak and fragile that we cannot see the whole length and extent of our history?” Read one of a visitor’s responses to Muir Woods, California, and seen by the Guardian. “Are we so afraid that we should hide the factual story of telling our past?” Oh, please !! “

In addition, although milder, the decline comes from the congress. Although the suggested budget of the White House for next year requires a 30% reduction in NPS financing, a reduction that decimated many main functions of the agency, the Republicans in the Congress have been more circumspect, writing proposals that would reduce the budget much less.

“There is a deep concern among the public about what happens in our national parks,” said Garden. “There is also a problem in the congress, although more must be done to restore the levels of personnel and prevent the sale of federal land.”

But even if other stiff cuts are avoided and the parks face the crushing of visitors this summer, lasting damage may have already been inflicted on the best idea of America. “This is not a normal situation,” said Kevin Heatley, who resigned from his Superintendent of the National Park to Crater Lake of Oregon in June due to loss of staff. “This is a paradigm shift that has repercussions that will last at least a generation.”