Public Lands Are in Trouble—And Outdoor Lovers Need to Step Up
From logging and mining to privatization and budget cuts, public lands are besieged on all fronts.
If you’ve ever stood on a fire lookout tower at dawn, paddled a river through high desert canyons, or simply escaped to a local trailhead for a few hours of peace, you already know: America’s public lands are sacred. They’re where we go to breathe, to reset, to remember what really matters.
But they’re also under increasing threat—and if we want to keep them wild and accessible, it’s time for all of us who love the outdoors to step up and speak up.
Right now, federal public lands—over 600 million acres managed by agencies like the National Park Service (NPS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and U.S. Forest Service (USFS)—are facing a dangerous mix of neglect, overuse, and exploitation.
The challenges range from crumbling infrastructure and budget cuts to extractive industry pressure, including calls for increased logging, mining, and drilling, and the consequences are already showing up in overcrowded national parks, closed trails, degraded ecosystems, and lost access.
Let’s start with the basics: staff and funding. Park rangers, trail crews, wildlife biologists, maintenance workers, and firefighters are all in short supply. The National Park Service has lost thousands of full-time employees in the past two decades, even as visitation keeps climbing.
Even worse, in the past few months, the Park Service’s workforce has been reduced by more than 10% as the result of layoffs, resignations, and other reductions-in-force.
The Forest Service and BLM are in the same boat. When there aren’t enough people to maintain trails, enforce protections, or manage wildfires, everything suffers.
The system is also financially underwater. As of this year, the Park Service faces a $23 billion deferred maintenance backlog. Roads are crumbling, restrooms are closed, and historic sites are falling apart. The Great American Outdoors Act was a huge win in 2020, but it’s a temporary fix—not a long-term solution.
Meanwhile, energy and mining interests are expanding their footprint, often at the expense of the landscapes we love. Millions of acres of public land are open to oil and gas leasing, including areas near national parks, critical wildlife habitat, and Indigenous cultural sites. Mining claims—enabled by a now-outdated law written in 1872—still require no royalties to taxpayers and minimal environmental oversight.
To be clear, energy is a necessary part of our economy—but public lands shouldn’t be treated like sacrifice zones. Even renewables, if poorly planned, can wreak havoc on fragile desert and sagebrush ecosystems. We need smarter siting, stronger protections, and a serious conversation about what “responsible development” really means.
But perhaps the most existential threat of all? Privatization. Some politicians and lobbying groups continue to push for transferring federal lands to state or private control under the guise of “local management.” Don’t buy it.
After enormous public pressure, a provision to sell more than 500,000 acres of public lands in Nevada and Utah was stripped from a House bill. We’ve never come this close to losing this much public land, and attempts to transfer public lands will most certainly continue in the near future.
The problem is that states typically don’t have the resources to manage vast landscapes, and once transferred, lands are far more likely to be sold, locked behind gates, developed for real estate, or opened up for industrial use.
Translation: your favorite backcountry hunting area, climbing crag, remote campsite, or even local hiking trail could be gone for good. Once they’re gone, they’re gone forever.
This isn't just a policy issue—it’s a values issue. Public lands are one of the few truly democratic institutions we have left. They're for everyone, regardless of zip code, gender, race, or income. They're places of refuge, recreation, cultural significance, and healing. Losing them means losing a part of who we are as Americans.
The good news? Outdoor lovers are a powerful constituency.
We’re hikers, mountain bikers, hunters, anglers, climbers, campers, paddlers, birders, photographers, and painters. We’re retirees RVing around the country, young families on their annual vacation; we’re weekend wanderers and after-work dog walkers. We come from all possible educational and political backgrounds.
We vote, we organize, and we care deeply about the places that give us so much.
So, what can we do?
Support full funding and staffing for the agencies that protect these lands.
Push for new conservation legislation and real reforms to outdated laws like the 1872 Mining Act.
Respect and elevate Indigenous stewardship of ancestral territories.
Fight back against privatization efforts, however subtle.
And speak up—at public meetings, in letters and phone calls to lawmakers, in our communities, and at rallies.
Public lands don’t have a lobby. But they do have us.
And if we want to keep chasing sunrises, finding solace in the wild, and passing these places down to the next generation, we need to get and stay loud.
We’ve been here before, though. In post-World War II America, a boom in industrialization, urbanization, and pollution posed huge threats to the environment. This led to the environmental movement of the 1960s-70s, which resulted in a flurry of bipartisan legislation to protect natural and cultural resources.
Major new laws created in those two decades include the Clean Air Act (1963), Wilderness Act (1964), National Historic Preservation Act (1966), National Environmental Policy Act (1970), Clean Water Act (1972), Endangered Species Act (1973), Federal Land Policy and Management Act (1976), and National Forest Management Act (1976).
We can do this again.
Let's direct our attention to the proposed mining near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, increased oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and drilling near parks like Carlsbad Caverns, Dinosaur, and Grand Teton.
Let's voice our opposition to the giant reductions to the budgets of land management agencies. Let's support park staff and demand that they're properly funded. Let's require our parks to be fully staffed so that we can visit them safely and enjoyably.
Let's ensure that our national parks experience is actually a good one, a trip we'll remember for the rest of our lives—not because things were bad, overcrowded, and disappointing, but because the parks were clean, safe, and adequately managed.
Let’s keep public lands and public lands. Forever.