In Grand Junction, Colorado, over one hundred people gathered on the lawn at Gemini Beer Company to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to celebrate the 109th anniversary of the National Parkparks Service (NPS), and to enjoy some birthday cake.
This year’s anniversary comes at a turbulent time for the agency, which oversees not just national parks, but also smaller historic sites. It’s facing proposed budget cuts of up to $1 billion, as well as staffing shortages in parks across the country. Gateway communities that depend on the parks, along with public lands advocates, are hoping to draw attention to these cuts, and put pressure on politicians to fully fund not just the NPS, but other federal land management agencies.
Tanya Travis lives in Grand Junction, and came to the event at Gemini. Like locals and visitors alike, she loves the Colorado National Monument and Mesa County’s public lands for the solitude they provide.
“It's an antidote. It's a medication,” she said. “It's like, how much does that save us in our everyday world? How many people come to work happier and deal with their family better because they've been out and they've taken some time in the outdoors?”
This event was organized by the nonprofits National Parks Conservation Association and the Center for Western Priorities, to bring the community together to talk about the threats to local public lands, like the Colorado National Monument.
“The president's budget proposal would cut over $1 billion to the National Park Service. It's the largest cut in National Park service history,” said Tracy Coppola, with the NPCA. That figure includes about $900 million, or just under a third of the NPS’s operations budget, and it also calls for the agency to turn certain smaller historical sites over to states for management.
Coppola said that’s the worst-case scenario for the parks. In the House of Representatives, lawmakers are considering a proposal that would cut less: $176 million, or about 6% of its current operations budget. It would also cut the NPS’s construction budget by about 30%, and the Interior budget also calls for reduced protections for national monuments. The Senate’s version of the Interior budget would keep funding for the NPS flat, and require that the administration give Congress notice of any significant reorganization efforts.
Other agencies like the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service are also facing large proposed cuts from the president’s budget, and proposals in Congress. That includes $198 million from the BLM’s conservation programs, as well as $783 million from the management of the national forest system and USFS salaries and facilities.
The administration says it is “streamlining” and “rightsizing” management structure and facilities, as well as countering the Biden administration’s “abuse” of the Antiquities Act, and reducing funding for “left-wing environmental non-profits that work against development of energy and mineral resources.”
A panel of speakers detailed their biggest fears about what those cuts could mean, while recording a live episode of CWP’s podcast, The Landscape, moderated by Kate Groetzinger.
Jessy Nuckolls has worked in wildlife conservation and research in western Colorado for years. She was most recently with the Society for Wilderness Stewardship, and is now working with the Western Colorado Alliance. She said she’s most worried about what these cuts mean for research happening on public lands.
“I'm very concerned about ecological collapse in some of these areas,” she said. “And I'm equally as concerned for the loss of some of the iIndigenous history that exists in these wilderness areas.”
Cole Hanson owns Gear Junction, which is an outdoor gear store in Grand Junction. He said one of his big concerns was recreation infrastructure.
“Trails don't just exist. Boat ramps don't just exist,” he said. “All this stuff takes time. It takes hard work from all of the employees of the various governmental agencies, whether that be federal or state or local, to take out the trash at the trash cans at the trailhead. And all that takes money.”
Ken Mabrey, a former superintendent of the Colorado National Monument, said he’s scared about what this means for the staff.
“All of the people up at the Monument, they have families, they have kids, they have mortgages, rent, auto payments,” he said. “And to live in these times, when you don't know what's going to happen, you can't produce well because you're worried about other things.”
Of course, there’s also the economy.
Chandler Smith, the director of the Grand Valley Outdoor Recreation Coalition, said the stakes are especially high for areas like Mesa County, which is 71% public lands by area.
“Here in Colorado, outdoor rec drove over $65 billion in economic output last year,” he said. “And right here in Mesa County, it brought in nearly half a billion dollars in 2022 and supported more than one in ten local jobs.”
According to the NPS, the Colorado National Monument alone brought $35 million to Mesa County in 2023.
But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. The speakers said there are lots of things people can do to make a difference, like calling their congressional representatives, or volunteering. For one, Cole Hanson said his business is working to set local kids up with gear, and to get them outdoors.
“Because the more kids that get outside, the earlier in their lives that they have those experiences, the firmer that those experiences are gonna be locked in for the rest of their life,” he said.
For residents, public lands aren’t just economic drivers. They’re places for connection.
Tanya Travis came to the event because her friend, Phil Mesdag, told her about it. Both spend time with friends and loved ones on local public lands.
“For me, usually it's early morning walks with my girlfriends,” said Travis.
“I have a friend and we meet at Serpent's Trail (in the Monument) once a week,” Mesdag said. “(It’s) hard to believe that spot is 10-15 minutes from here, and in a fairly decent sized city. And we have that peace and solitude right there.”
Copyright 2025 Rocky Mountain Community Radio. This story was shared via Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a network of public media stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, including Aspen Public Radio.
