Trump Doesn't Want You to Learn About His Latest Attack on National Parks

What you can do about it.

Earlier this year, I went to the Trump birthday parade and spoke with MAGA supporters. One of them expressed her love for “Zions [sic] Park”.

You can watch the video on Instagram: link or TikTok: link.

As much as she may love both Trump and National Parks, these two loves cannot coexist. Trump has wanted to give his friends access to the National Parks since his first term to pillage the area for resources. And now, we’re seeing him do it again.

Here’s what you need to know and what you can do about it.

What you need to know

The Sierra Club provides some background on something known as the “Roadless Rule”.

In 2001, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule was adopted with massive public support to protect 58.5 million acres of roadless national forest land in 39 states. The Roadless Rule was the result of years of work and public input. The public comment period set a record with 1.6 million public comments submitted. The rule protects 58.5 million acres of national forests over 39 states from new road construction, and prohibits the logging of roadless areas in the National Forest System.

Colorado and Idaho later won their own, state-specific versions of the Roadless Rule. In 2020, the Trump administration attempted to exempt the Tongass National Forest in Alaska from the Roadless Rule. The Biden administration re-applied the Rule’s protections to the Tongass.

Trump seeks to roll back the Roadless Rule and build roads through nearly 58 million acres of forests, and to engage in logging and oil-and-gas drilling.

The Sierra Club shares why this is incredibly concerning:

• Research shows that wildfires are four times as likely to start in areas with roads than roadless areas.

• US National Forests are the headwaters of our rivers and the largest source of municipal water supply in the nation with over 60 million people benefiting.

• Increasing industrial activity will jeopardize both indigenous communities and local wildlife.

• Roads already exist in national forests and they’re backlogged with repairs that are expected to cost billions. More roads would cost much more.

• The Roadless Rule has an exception that roads can be built in emergency issues or to connect communities.

What you need to do

There is a public comment period that opened on August 29 and closes on September 19. That’s a ridiculously short comment period (and deliberately so). However, over 78,000 comments have been received! What we need to do is submit so many comments that it takes the administration years to review them. If you use the talking points linked below, some of the sample comment, and insert your own thoughts, you’ll have this done within 5 minutes. It’s not recommended to copy and paste other people’s/org’s entire template comments because those comments end up being counted as one. Make sure that your comment is different.

Here’s the link to submit a comment: LINK (click on the green button and follow the prompts).

Here are sample talking points to craft your own comment on the importance of preserving national parks: LINK

To help you with a sample comment, here’s a sample comment from Tippy Tippens, who I met recently (along with her pup Chachi) in her awesome store “Kind Hearted Goods” in downtown Richmond. Tippy tipped me off about this important topic: LINK

Tippy and Chachi