Trump’s national park reel protests on glaciers: “They ruined employees and invested funds” | Montana

dA large number of former Rangers, park volunteers and local residents protested at the gateway to Montana Glacier National Park on Wednesday Staff cuts and hiring freezes This has put many national parks in crisis, including glaciers.

Current and former staff and watchdog groups say the cuts mean employees cannot maintain facilities and infrastructure. Some say that the park has insufficient infrastructure and too few staff to cope with emergencies.

While it might seem like the operation of a glacier is normal for tourists like this, “it’s like looking great along the Hollywood movie set, but nothing behind it,” said Sarah Lundstrum, Glacier Program Manager for the National Parks Conservancy.

Protesters held signs, shouting and waving among tourists as they visited the park on the Capitol West Caucus. Depend on Montana Republican Congressman and former Home Secretary Ryan Zinke, the caucus came to the park to showcase the success of the 2020 American Outdoor Activities, which received federal funding to protect and maintain public land.

Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines advocated the Bill during Donald Trump’s first term, calling it “the biggest conservation victory in Montana and the nation in 50 years.” In May, Daines introduced the America the Beautiful Act to expand federal funding to address critical maintenance backlogs.

But Congress’ support for national park funding programs is in the Trump administration’s work across the country at National Parks, including at glaciers, cuts in national parks including glaciers, where overworked workers have little bandwidth to implement the program.

No Congressional Republicans, including Daines or Zinke, talked about cuts and freezes, and all voted for a large beauty bill withdrawn from the National Park Service (NPS).

“We are supporting the park, but be aware of the grandeur of our policy makers in the national park, where they get stuck in the staff behind the scenes and spend money,” said Suzanne Hindler, one of the organizers of the rally. She said organizers specifically chose to hold events outside the park to avoid adding more work to the already burdened park staff during the peak of the tourist season.

Handler stressed that funding in national parks is crucial. But without staff performing the work, no one can solve the new problem.

Jan Metzmaker, a longtime park employee who was on the Glacier’s first global off-road fleet, said: “I can see deterioration in the services and facilities.

“They do need to put some money into that money because the place is crazy to people. It’s fallen in love with death. But, they can’t do maintenance and everything they need to do in the park right now.”

Visits to national parks reached a record 331.9 million last year. But the National Parks lost nearly a quarter of their permanent employees and seasonally employed nearly 8,000 positions due to the Trump administration’s hiring freeze, termination and acquisitions and early retirement offers. Further employees were described as “Deep blunt“And the “positive and swift” of the National Parks Traveler, a multimedia media covering NPS, was detained in court, but may still be emerging.

In the glacier, I saw Increased 7.5% Among the high-record visitors last year, the park is trying to operate with 25% of staff losses. Vacancies involve chief ranger and fire locations, wildlife scientists, multiple environmental impact analysis positions, as well as emergency services, to mechanics, electricians, plumbers and IT locations.

Lundstrom said the glacier now uses Starlink after the federal government canceled internet contracts for all national parks this year, which some staff said was spots, completely dropped, and often failed to connect to park dispatches and 911 phones. Those staff who requested to remain anonymous, only one person was to address the technical issues because they were worried about revenge in parks across the continental divide, no cell services, and often saw lost and injured hikers and encounters with wildlife, including parks, including grizzly bear crowds.

Most importantly, the current park staff speaks anonymously and no longer have enough staff to safely respond to emergencies. Fortunately, they said “the park hasn’t had any major events this year.” “In the past few years, we’ve had fires, major search surgeries, real major injuries. It’s a matter of time until there’s an event where we can’t respond properly, a massive failure of the system is a matter of time.”

However, Home Secretary Doug Burgum issued an order in April that despite the reduction of staff, all parks were required to remain “open and accessible”. In glaciers, this may come at the expense of visitors and staff safety.

The Ministry of the Interior did not immediately respond to requests for comment on issues raised by staff and oversight organizations. Zinke and Daines’ offices also did not respond to requests for comment.

Staff said the remaining employees were doing “double the job.” Law enforcement covers twice as much as they used to, maintenance workers are working on jobs they are not trained, and external recreation operators (such as glacier guides and Montana rafts) are trash and cleaning bathrooms in the river to bridge the gap. The mindset inside the park is, “If you are the only one left, you will do everything you can to help”, the employee said.

National Park Rangers Association Report “After cutting federal budgets, some seasonal employees at Yosemite National Park have been working for six weeks in recent months as park supervisors work hard to manage the recruitment.”

A rally attendee, a local woman named Kathy, who did not want to be identified by her last name, was a volunteer with the Glacier National Park Association. “We do recovery, painting, patrols in remote areas, visitor centers, vehicle bookings. We want to do things, but unfortunately, we don’t have enough supervisors – Rangers – with volunteers.”

“It feels like the government is failing us,” the glacier employee said.

expert Worry That Trump’s Budget proposal Cutting down 36% of the national park budget (which may force up to 350 park units) is an attempt to deliberately destroy the park system as an excuse to sell the land for profit.

“Hollowing up staffing, cutting budgets, changing priorities – all of which are perfect for the idea of ​​keeping these agencies from performing their tasks, which will lead to a call for privatization,” Lundstrom said. “Because if the government cannot manage the land, then obviously there should be someone, right?

Multiple sources say Glacier employees have low morale. “The civilian federal workforce used to be nonpartisan, so you always feel like you can speak out – free or conservative without worrying about retribution,” one employee said. “The background color now is to stay under the radar. If you say it and say ‘It’s wrong,’ then you have almost a goal on your back.”

A young mother attended the rally with her two young sons, who did not want to be named because her husband was a federal employee. Just this month, the Ministry of Justice Turn on fire The husband developed an official who tracks the phone app for ICE agents.

“Having these two little guys is just a constant reminder of how much the world is changing and needs to stand up. Everything can be blinked.”

Glacier is also a poster for children in the national park, because of its glacier of the same name Being predicted It completely disappeared in the next few decades. However, the administration has no persecution from Congressional Republicans, cutting climate science and turning around Biden-era initiatives to curb climate change.

Danes said in a press release that he introduced the beauty of America, “so that people can go out and enjoy the natural beauty of our lucky in America” and he was “proud” for “protecting our outdoor lifestyle for generations.”

Hildener said she wasn’t fooled. “It’s really frightening to see capitalism as a driving force for managing land rather than protection: for myself, what it means to future generations, and to the planet. How do we as the public help elected people see what the real cost is?”