“Enjoy the park while you can!” a protester tells a group of people walking off the parking lot and onto the sandfield and bare Medano creekbed of the Great Sand Dunes National Park. As part of a national movement to show support at all 433 national parks on Saturday, a group of nearly 40 gathered at the San Luis Valley’s national park in solidarity with the people affected by the massive federal firings and layoffs that are currently underway.
“Thanks for enjoying the park!” the group said, encouraging a couple of sandboarders.
Visitors to the park honk as they drive by. They stop at the designated “First Amendment Areas” at the visitor shop and dune parking lot and share their thanks and show their pride in the group.
The protestors carried signs with poignant and precise language and upside down American flags, a sign of distress. They shared stories and snacks. They thanked visitors and took the time to talk when they were asked questions.
A child asked their mom why everyone was carrying signs and standing around. She plainly explained it while emptying the sand out of their shoes.
Even the park rangers who were stationed nearby thanked the group for their support.
Rosalee Reese, the fisheries biologist for the Rio Grande National Forest who was fired earlier in February, stood by with the group wearing a national forest shirt and holding a sign that read: “Protect public lands/reinstate federal workers.”
One protester who currently works in the federal forestry sector and wished to speak anonymously said, “In large part the reason why I’m here today is because over the past few weeks I’ve just been watching my friends across the country get fired from their positions. And [in] predominantly rural communities where there’s not a lot of recourse to find other work and where they’ve been providing a very important role to that rural community as well as the public lands surrounding it.”
Protesters said they were concerned about the Trump Administration’s move toward privatization.
Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum has been tasked with rolling back regulations on public lands, making it easier for energy companies to tap into fossil fuel resources across the nation, even on public lands. During his senate confirmation hearings, he said federal land should be used for recreation, logging, and oil and gas production.
He said, “Not every acre of federal land is a national park or a wilderness area. Some of those areas we have to absolutely protect for their precious stuff, but the rest of it – this is America’s balance sheet.”
The Department of Interior oversees more than 500 million acres of federal land and large offshore areas. Burgum and Trump believe tapping into America’s untouched resources could address the nation’s $35 trillion debt.
Through the Unleash American Energy and Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation Executive Orders Trump signed in January, the stage is set for a massive influx of private industry working its way into many of the nation’s most untouched lands.
“If this administration continues moving in the way it has been. I mean, this fundamentally isn’t about increasing government efficiency whatsoever. It’s increasing the ease at which the government and private actors that are supporting the politicians that are in power right now are able to obtain natural resources from our public lands and take those away from us,” said one protester.
The National Parks Service is responsible for 433 individual sites, making up 85 million acres across the entire United States.
The Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve was founded as a National Monument in 1932 then became a National Park in 2004. For the past decade it has averaged nearly half a million visitors a year.
Most everyone who attended the protest was local, with a few coming in from Salida.
“Public Lands Make America Great” one sign read. Another, “Our Parks Protect Water.”
“Our public lands are not 4 sale.”
“Protect public land + its stewards.”
“We want to keep this place open and wild,” said Kim Amidai. “Every time we come, we hike, it’s just an experience for everybody to be in a place that’s so wild. It’s not the city, it’s just, you’re on your own out here.”
According to a document compiled through crowdsourcing by park rangers, the Great Sand Dunes has lost two employees since the federal firings began in February. The Citizen emailed the Great Sand Dunes public information officer to confirm if this was the case. We were then forwarded to the national office in Washington D.C.
This was the response: “The National Park Service is hiring seasonal workers to continue enhancing the visitor experience as we embrace new opportunities for optimization and innovation in workforce management. We are focused on ensuring that every visitor has the chance to explore and connect with the incredible, iconic spaces of our national parks.”
Thousands of probationary employees have been fired since mid-February; there are about 200,000 probationary employees across the federal workforce. Last Thursday, U.S. District Judge William Alsup found that the Office of Personnel Management had no authority to order probationary firings and that the mass firings were likely illegal. He said OPM does not have any authority whatsoever “under any statute in the history of the universe” to fire any agency employee other than its own.
Next to Walmart, the federal government is the largest employer in the United States, employing more than 3 million people.
One protester, who had a career in civil service, told The Citizen, “Anyone who’s worked for a federal agency for the past year, our federal government has spent a lot of money to train and educate those people to be successful in the workplace. All of that money, all of [those] resources walked out the door because people were told to get out. None of it was based on merit.”
Elon Musk, who has an estimated worth of more than $450 billion, has advocated cutting government waste with the “chainsaw for bureaucracy.” Since taking over the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk and his crew have been gutting and dismantling agencies such as the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Defense, and more.
The protestor continued, “Our country is about equality and mutual respect and dignity. And the federal services have been instructed to no longer abide by professional standards that treat people with dignity and respect. It’s appalling.”