“It’s easy to feel besieged here,” said Wendy Ross, superintendent of the Theodore Roosevelt national park. Ross’s park, named after the “conservationist president” who helped to keep America’s natural treasures unspoiled, is surrounded by oil and gas drilling that has transformed the landscape.

The boom in cheap natural gas has led to drilling and flame flaring just outside the boundaries of the 110 square mile national park, located in North Dakota’s badlands. There is virtually nowhere in the park in which its 600,000 annual visitors cannot see a drilling rig, an oil pump, a highway or a cellphone tower in what was once a sleepy rural area.

Ross said she is bombarded by letters and messages on Facebook from tourists over these eyesores. She frets that the park’s special status for clean air will be ruined by pollution and that a new oil refinery, planned for an area just two miles east of the protected area, will heighten this clash between nature and mining.

“The visitor experience is impacted by this type of structure,” Ross said. “These proposals all add up, they have a cumulative impact. There’s a perception that we are trying to shut down the energy industry but we just want responsible placement of these things.”

The challenges facing Theodore Roosevelt national park are emblematic of a fresh struggle for the soul of national parks. The parks, “America’s best idea”, have to define what they are for and whom they serve. Once-simmering tensions are starting to pop.

“The attacks on public land have become more visible and increasingly agitated, it’s got more muscle in recent years,” said Lynn Scarlett, chief operating officer of the Department of the Interior through George W Bush’s presidency.

“My discussions with Congress used to be about practical things, whether funding was enough,” she said. “It wasn’t like this. I didn’t find this general tenor of discussion that was anti-federal land and certainly not sentiments that were anti-national parks.”

There is a new crusade by some lawmakers, dubbed the “anti-parks caucus”, to unlock more public land to drilling and other development. This is a sharp divergence from the broad consensus forged since Roosevelt, a Republican, spurred the expansion of America’s network of national parks almost 110 years ago. This network now spans 412 federally protected places, including 59 national parks such as Yellowstone and Yosemite as well as hundreds of battlefields, monuments and historical trails.

Theodore Roosevelt stands with naturalist John Muir on Glacier Point, above Yosemite Valley in California. Photograph: Bettmann/Bettmann Archive

Roosevelt enthused over the “majestic beauty” of nature, created five national parks and signed the Antiquities Act, which allows a president to unilaterally declare a national monument. Roosevelt wielded this power 18 times, protecting, among other places, the Grand Canyon, which he advised should be left “as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.”

“We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources,” Roosevelt acknowledged in 1908, before adding, rather presciently: “But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted, when the soils have still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields and obstructing navigation.”

A bipartisan acceptance that areas of beauty or ecological importance should be off limits to development gradually set in. Although there have always been tussles – a 1920 campaign against the protection of Lake Malheur in Oregon showed a picture of a small child and a pelican with the slogan “Which is best for Oregon, this baby or this bird?” – and compromises over the boundaries of parks to accommodate grazing or mining, many park advocates feel there’s now an unprecedented ideological zeal against protected spaces.

An analysis by the Center for American Progress (CAP) has found that between January 2013 and March 2016, rightwing members of Congress filed at least 44 bills or amendments designed to undermine or water down protections for national parks.

A core group of 20 members of Congress, many of them Tea Party members, are part of what CAP calls an “anti-parks caucus” gripped by an implacable hostility to public lands.

The wider Republican party is receptive to this position – its official 2016 platform states: “Congress should reconsider whether parts of the federal government’s enormous landholdings and control of water in the west could be better used for ranching, mining or forestry through private ownership.”

Republicans have attempted to remodel the Antiquities Act, an “evil” law according to congressman Rob Bishop, via the Improved National Monument Designation Process Act. They have tried to open up more areas for drilling and mining and also transfer vast areas of federal land in the west to the states, through bills such as the Utah Public Lands Initiative Act.

Developers have sniffed the wind of change and chanced their arm. Two proposed goldmines on the doorstep of Yellowstone national park have raised fears of heavy metal pollution. Uranium mining is planned for the Grand Canyon, while an attempt to create a large housing and commercial development on the rim of the valley has been blocked, for now.

Local anxieties can appear anti-parks, too. A foundation connected to Roxanne Quimby, co-founder of Burt’s Bees, has faced heavy criticism over its plan to donate land outside Acadia national park – an area of plunging granite peaks and forests in Maine – to the National Parks Service. Residents say federal ownership would have an irreversible impact on access and land use.

This opposition to perceived government overreach has extended to the armed militia that seized the Malheur national wildlife refuge in Oregon in January. The group, unhappy over grazing conditions imposed on federal land, stayed for 41 days, leaving almost $2m in damage.

The leader of armed activists at the occupied Malheur national wildlife refuge. Photograph: Rob Kerr/AFP/Getty Images

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said he likes the “spirit” of Cliven Bundy, a rancher whose three sons were involved in the occupation. Former candidate Ted Cruz, a Texas senator, said the standoff was “the unfortunate and tragic culmination of the path that President Obama has set the federal government on”.



Tim Blount, lives and works at the Malheur refuge as executive director of Friends of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. He said he and other staff were forced to leave because of “threats and harassment from militia members”.

“Throughout the occupation I became keenly aware of my surroundings and never felt safe,” Blount said. “Refuge staff and I had been told that they were looking for one of us to kidnap.

“I now find myself looking over my shoulder, not feeling comfortable and realizing that I am a victim of domestic terrorism. I love my community but now I wonder who supported the militia and in doing so supported how I and refuge staff were victimized.”

Mark Wenzler, senior vice-president of conservation programs at the National Parks Conservation Association, said national parks rhetoric has become “reckless”.

“There’s been conflict for decades. What’s more dangerous now is that we have members of Congress who are encouraging these armed militias who feel empowered to take over federal lands,” he said. “They are getting cues that this is acceptable behaviour. Congress needs to be much more responsible. It concerns me.”

Wenzler said ceding land back to each state is “a terrible idea” due to their patchy conservation record. Republicans argue it is an economic imperative with the stagnation of job-producing industries elsewhere in the US.

“A prosperous people doesn’t looks desperately at public lands and see a missed opportunity,” said Nan Hayworth, a Republican former congresswoman and director of ConservAmerica.

“We have a citizenry that is palpably distressed and one of the ways we could decrease the cost of living is to have cheaper fuels. That means extraction. This is about misbegotten policy in regards to the economy, which I lay at the feet of the Democratic party. It has led us to this sorry point.”

These attitudes have caused deep disquiet within the administration of Barack Obama, who has set aside more land and water for protection than any of his predecessors, including tracts of Californian desert and one of the world’s largest marine reserves off Hawaii.

Sally Jewell, the interior secretary, said the “emergence of an extreme movement to seize public lands” risks areas belonging to Americans “being sold off for a short-term gain to the highest bidder”.

“This movement has propped up dangerous voices that reject the rule of law, put communities and hard-working public servants at risk, and fail to appreciate how deeply democratic and American our national parks and public lands are,” Jewell said.

A toxic brew of underinvestment, political vindictiveness and climate change are challenging Roosevelt’s legacy. Fifty-nine national parks spanning the tropical wilderness of Florida’s Everglades to the vast glaciers, grizzlies and wolves of Denali in Alaska, could become “isolated islands of conservation with run-down facilities that crowds of Americans visit like zoos to catch a glimpse of our nation’s remaining wildlife and undeveloped patches of land”, Jewell warned.

Some of the 60 rigs surrounding McKenzie County in western North Dakota. Visitors have complained about similar ‘eyesores’ spoiling views around national parks in the state. Photograph: Matthew Brown/AP

While the political landscape has tilted, public support for national parks remains rock solid. It’s almost impossible to find an issue that 95% Americans agree on, but polling suggests this is the level of support for federal government protection of national parks.

Separate polls show a hefty majority of voters would be unhappy if their representatives stripped protections from public land. A record number of visitors – almost 305 million – gazed at the vistas of Yosemite, Yellowstone, Gettysburg and other NPS properties last year.

While the NPS could be enjoying a triumphant centennial in 2016, it has to cajole funds from a recalcitrant Congress to deal with crumbling visitor centres, trails, campgrounds and education programs.

An overdue maintenance backlog has grown from a headache under George W Bush to a weeping sore under Obama. It will cost nearly $12bn to patch up all of the creaking infrastructure in national parks, at a time when a recent study found Congress has trimmed the budget of the NPS about 15% over the past 15 years.

“We are not placing a high enough priority on conservation,” said Linda Bilmes, a co-author of the research who sits on the NPS advisory board. “We have been underinvesting in the long-term work that supports the mission statement of national parks.”

The value the American public places on national parks dwarfs the NPS’s $3bn budget, the study found. Eight in 10 voters would be prepared to pay more in taxes to preserve national parks. That could equate to an enormous $92bn annual value of national parks, monuments and historic areas.

An unhappy confluence of events has squeezed national parks. Since 2001, a major focus has been put upon national security, overseas wars and economic crisis. The rise of the Tea Party has placed major scrutiny upon new government spending. And while the public has an ongoing love affair with national parks, outdoor spaces aren’t in enough visible distress for an outcry.

The result is a feeling of gloom among many who work to protect America’s natural treasures. “People who work for NPS have a sense of mission, they are some of the most professional, best-trained civil servants in the US,” said Bilmes.

“When you speak to the rangers, they’ll say ‘I used to have six people and now I have one.’ They are feeling overworked and concerned about the challenges they face.”

The funding impasse could be alleviated by private philanthropy. Tin-shaking by the NPS has raised $23m in the past year, with Congress matching $10m.

Wealthy individuals usually want their name attached to something more grandiose than a repaired walkway. “It’s hard to attract private funds for repair work,” acknowledged NPS spokesman Jeff Olson. “We don’t really have people out beating the bushes for deferred maintenance.”

What is needed is a high-profile, modern appraisal of the majesty of national parks and the risks of gradual decline.

The economic benefit is a key part of the case. Income from pristine parks is far more resilient than the cyclical revenues from mining. There is also a broader, more complex argument about how to maintain a network of protected spaces to nurture threatened species and cleanse the air and water we rely on. Parks surrounded by oil drilling, in North Dakota or elsewhere, risk creating the isolated fragments Sally Jewell fears.

“We know that healthy, intact ecosystems are fundamental to the health of our wildlife – and our nation,” Jewell said.

“But if their integrity is undermined by a haphazard web of transmission lines, pipelines and roads, where does that leave us 50 years from now? Or 500?

“What we need is smart planning, on a landscape-level, irrespective of manmade lines on a map. We need to take a holistic look at an ecosystem – on land or in the ocean – to determine where it makes sense to develop, where it makes sense to protect the natural resources, and where we can accomplish both.”

Long-term planning to save species and tackle climate change seems counter-intuitive to the short-termism gripping American politics. In its 101st year, the NPS will again be in the trenches, deflecting threats, making each dollar stretch, slowly trying to inch its way back to spirit of Roosevelt and his Yosemite camping buddy John Muir.

“There’s a strong 100 years-plus reason why we have national parks,” said Scarlett. “They reflect who we are as Americans. They are places of incredible historical, natural and geological renown.

“Places like Yellowstone attract people from around the world because it is mind-boggling. It isn’t just valuable to Wyoming and Montana, but to the nation and to the world. National parks inspire us and give us identity. If you see them just as states versus the federal government, you are missing the point.

“I remain reasonably confident that when push comes to shove, efforts to intrude upon national parks for energy development will be precluded. The strong support of the public will prevail. I just don’t think they will allow it.”

Big Cypress national preserve

There are 12 parks in the NPS system allowing for minerals to be dug up within the park boundaries. Big Cypress national preserve in southern Florida is to be the subject of seismic testing for oil and gas, a scenario worrying some conservationists.

“Driving big trucks though the park will disrupt the ecosystem,” said Mark Wenzler, of the National Parks Conservation Association. “Companies don’t have an absolute right to destroy everything. The last thing you want in a vulnerable ecosystem in Florida is this sort of thing.”

Mojave national preserve

Earlier this year, the federal government gave its blessing to the Ivanpah project, the world’s largest solar development. Situated in the Mojave national preserve, deep in the California desert, the project will provide power for 140,000 homes throughout the west. But there are concerns it will disturb a fragile desert ecosystem, which includes ancient mesquite trees and the endangered desert tortoise.

Theodore Roosevelt national park

During the day, visitors to Theodore Roosevelt national park can see drilling and flaring from sites on all sides of the park. At night, the light from these constructions can hinder stargazing. While fracking has brought new economic activity to North Dakota, some worry development has gone too far, too fast.



“Destroying the areas directly around national parks is probably not the best idea,” said Winthrop Roosevelt, Teddy’s great-great-grandson. “Just like people don’t want to live right next to chemical plants, national parks next to industrial sites might cause ecological damage.”

National historic trails

The Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring oil from Alberta in Canada to refineries in Illinois and Texas, was seemingly killed off by Barack Obama following vociferous opposition from climate campaigners.

But Donald Trump has said he would allow the pipeline to go ahead should he win the presidency. The pipeline would cut across a number of valued hiking routes, including the Pony Express trail and the Lewis and Clark national historic trail.