The Trump administration’s cuts to the National Park Service’s budget and staffing have raised concerns among park advocates and the public that the administration is aiming to further privatize the national parks.
The nation has a long history of similar efforts, including a wildly unpopular 1980 attempt by Reagan administration Interior Secretary James Watt to promote development and expand private concessions in the parks. But debate over using public national park land for private profit dates back more than a century before that.
