The Goodnewspaper The 2025 National Parks Edition

Our country’s national parks have long been called “America’s best idea.” There’s even a Ken Burns documentary by that exact name, and its description sums up the establishment of the national parks quite well: “An idea as uniquely American as the Declaration of Independence and just as radical: That the most special places in the nation should be preserved, not for royalty or the rich, but for everyone.” So, naturally, when the Trump administration — under the guidance of Elon Musk, former head of the Department of Government Efficiency — eliminated the jobs of over 1,000 National Park Service rangers and U.S. Forest Service workers in February 2025, it felt pretty un-American. This move, which precipitated budget cuts, staffing shortages, and proposals to sell chunks of public lands to the…

In a recent report, the U.S. Department of the Interior reported that the National Park Service generated 415,000 jobs and contributed more than $55.6 billion to the nation’s economy in 2023. That same year, the NPS received $3.6 billion from the federal fiscal budget, meaning that the agency brought in 15 times more in revenue than it received in government spending in 2023 alone. “This report illustrates the significant economic benefits national parks provide to nearby communities and the U.S. economy, and the value of our work to safeguard these public lands in the wake of the climate crisis, upgrade visitor experiences, and invest in park infrastructure and staff,” former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said in a statement. And it’s not just national parks that are good…

Last year, the Lakota People’s Law Project launched a first-of-its-kind program, The Sacred Defense National Parks and Monuments Initiative, which encourages visitors to leave a “10 to 20% tip” for the tribal communities whose ancestral homelands are located within national parks. Chase Iron Eyes, the director of the Lakota People’s Law Project, told CNN Traveler that the initiative directly benefits the Native communities that “are still struggling to heal” from the compounded traumas of forced removal and land dispossession. “When we saw the gap in what people know about the real history of the national parks and monuments, and when we realized how hard it is for people to compensate the tribes for traveling to their land, we wanted to build something that bridged that gap,” Iron Eyes explained. In…

In the wake of funding cuts and mass staff firings at national parks, over 60 major businesses joined together to rebuke proposed funding rollbacks and prevent the large-scale sale of public lands. In an address to Congress, the Brands for Public Lands coalition reminded lawmakers that their businesses “contribute to the $1.2 trillion outdoor economy” and that they had a vested interest in keeping public lands “publicly owned and accessible for generations to come.” “A priceless and irreplaceable resource that can’t be reduced to a line item on a balance sheet, our public lands are intrinsically tied to the life-defining pursuits of climbing, skiing, and mountain sports that our company was built to serve,” Neil Fiske, the CEO of Black Diamond Equipment, expressed in a shared statement. “We are proud…

GOOD Sign a petition through the National Parks Conservation Association to protect parks staff from further funding cuts and pressure elected officials to take a stand. Visit: npca.org/advocacy. BETTER Buy an annual national park pass to enjoy the parks without paying entrance fees and day-use fees. These passes also serve as a way to fund and protect national parks. Visit: nps.gov/planyourvisit BEST Donate directly to the nonprofits that help fund these irreplaceable agencies: National Park Foundation (give.nationalparks.org) and National Forest Foundation (support.nationalforests.org).…

When it comes to iconic animals that call the 63 national parks home, bison, black bears, and bald eagles probably come to mind first. But Cape Cod National Seashore has been hard at work restoring an underrated species in the National Park Service: the humble horseshoe crab. Despite its name, horseshoe crabs are not crabs, but rather 445 million-year-old arthropods that serve as a vital food source for countless turtles, birds, and fish on the Atlantic Coast. “They look like trouble, but they’re not,” Lawrence Niles, who co-founded the Horseshoe Crab Recovery Coalition, told the National Parks Conservation Association. The coalition has tasked itself with saving the “living fossil” species, which has survived five of Earth’s extinction-level events. Its population has recently declined, though, because of overharvesting and overuse by…