Tuesday, March 4, 2025 | 2 a.m.
Think about a million-acre wilderness: mountain peaks, dashing rivers, bears and wolves. Now think about a metropolis the scale of, say, Chicago.
In my nook of Montana each summer season, these two issues merge. Montana is residence to Glacier Nationwide Park, and 30 years in the past, the park had about 1,000,000 guests a 12 months. These days, the park attracts greater than 3 million folks a 12 months.
It’s like a serious metropolis teleported to the backbone of the Rockies. These guests have wants — meals, restrooms, parking tons and trails. They need to be secure. They count on to have enjoyable. That’s why now we have park rangers, together with highway crews, hearth crews, wildlife managers and myriad people who maintain the park functioning.
However in the present day, when they need to be planning for the subsequent busy season, our public land managers and stewards discover themselves kneecapped by a zealous, unelected price range slasher who wields not a purple pen, however a chainsaw.
For no cause besides the will to chop the federal price range by eliminating as many workers members as doable, a crew recruited by Elon Musk (beneath orders from President Donald Trump) has slashed the workforces of our public land companies.
Simply as you’ll be able to’t run a ranch with out ranch fingers, you’ll be able to’t run public lands with out land managers and staffers. They are usually devoted to the general public good, nearly all the time working for a modest wage, the love of the mission and the prospect to work outdoor.
Musk and crew recommend they’re simply getting began. Their excuses are specious. The concept that they will steadiness the price range on the backs of park rangers and path crews is like saying they’re going to dam the Colorado River with a couple of shovelfuls of gravel.
Chicago serves its 3.5 million folks on an annual operations price range of $17 billion. Glacier Park’s annual operations price range is 1,000 instances much less, about $15 million. And Glacier Park is a gigantic money cow. Guests from world wide are within the temper to eat, drink and spend within the native financial system, to the tune of $350 million yearly. From that perspective alone, Glacier Park is likely one of the biggest bargains in authorities.
Glacier Park is just not alone. Right here and throughout the West, our public lands present the setting for a lifestyle that draws funding. The identical deep cuts are taking place throughout the nation. They have an effect on each American who appreciates our public property for its clear water, wildlife and world-class recreation.
Both Musk doesn’t get this or doesn’t care. A person rich sufficient for his personal house program doesn’t need to share public lands with the riffraff.
Westerners who depend upon public lands for our lifestyle and our livelihoods know that these lands want and deserve good stewardship. For that, you want stewards, not a gutted, demoralized workforce that’s compelled to look over its shoulder for the subsequent ax to fall.
The Republicans are in cost in Washington, D.C. There isn’t a different social gathering guilty for unhealthy selections.
Our public lands are each financial belongings and a patriotic level of delight. It’s time our elected officers (and their unelected minions) act prefer it.
Ben Lengthy is a contributor to Writers on the Vary, writersontherange.org, a nonprofit devoted to spurring full of life conservation in regards to the West.
