Solnit: Trump Yosemite parcel plan part of broader public lands shift

Atlantic reports 68% drop in Park Service spending outside Washington

Rebecca Solnit, a Guardian US columnist, published an opinion piece Aug. 31 criticizing a Trump administration proposal to transfer a parcel of Yosemite National Park to a private developer. Solnit framed the proposal as part of what she described as a broader pattern of public lands dispossession, writing that the transfer would “compromise the inviolability of national parks.”

The columnist described the parcel as about a quarter-mile of land on Yosemite’s western border, designated for what she characterized as corporate development. She wrote that “the US is being sold for parts or just handed over to the oligarchy” and described the broader administration effort as “a fire sale, a bankruptcy auction, it’s a planned dismantling of everything from its military to its institutions of higher education to its scientific research to its public lands.”

Solnit grounded her criticism in reporting by The Atlantic’s Michael Scherer documenting a sharp reallocation of National Park Service funds. According to Scherer’s analysis, Park Service spending on projects in park regions outside Washington fell by $854 million, or 68%, compared with the full prior fiscal year. Spending in the Washington area rose by about $100 million during the same period.

Scherer described a fast-track approval process for directing Park Service funds to administration projects at the White House and in Washington, D.C., according to Solnit’s account. She cited two projects she said were funded through that process — what she described as “gilding statues” and “the incompetent $16m painting of the reflecting pool.”

Park Service staffing has also been reduced, according to the column. The agency’s workforce fell by 24% in 2025, Solnit wrote, and the Trump administration has proposed further reductions. The columnist argued that staff cuts compound the harm of any land transfers, writing that Park Service employees “protect endangered species, waterways, land, prevents fires and provides public services from search and rescue operations to education to clean restrooms.”

Solnit also pointed to other Trump administration public-lands actions as evidence of a broader pattern. She cited the reported opening of Chaco Canyon in New Mexico to fracking and characterized the administration’s reduction of the Bears Ears and Escalante monuments in Utah as amounting to roughly 90% of those protected areas.

The Associated Press reported earlier this month on the Utah monument reductions, stating that they “undo protections established by his Democratic predecessors on public lands that are sacred among many Native Americans.” The AP added that “Trump administration officials and congressional Republicans have sought to expand drilling, mining and logging on public lands, while removing protections for imperiled species and rolling back rules for conservation.”

Solnit placed the Yosemite proposal in historical context, noting that President Abraham Lincoln signed Yosemite Valley into federal protection in 1864. The bill Lincoln signed established that “Yosemite Valley’s premises shall be held for public use, resort, and recreation; shall be inalienable for all time,” according to the column. Solnit noted that Yellowstone was set aside eight years later as a federally managed preserve when President Ulysses S. Grant signed a document declaring the area “reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.”

The columnist also addressed the historical complexity of the parks’ founding, writing that “there was always a lie in the foundation of Yosemite, Yellowstone, Death Valley, the Grand Canyon and many other parks” because they were established on Indigenous peoples’ ancestral homelands. She noted that in Yosemite, “those wrongs have been addressed over the past 30 years by changes in signage, representations of the place’s history, and opening to the traditional usage and ceremony of the original inhabitants’ descendants.”

In closing, Solnit framed the Yosemite dispute as part of a larger question about the federal government’s purpose, writing that “Yosemite was first established as protected land during one civil war. Another is underway about whether the federal government exists to serve the good of the many or the profiteering of the few.”

Solnit is the author of “Orwell’s Roses” and co-editor, with Thelma Young Lutunatabua, of the climate anthology “Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility.”