DOGE is in charge of US National Parks—including marine monuments. What does that mean for our oceans?

The tail end of National Parks Week in the US around the end of April is usually a time for celebrating and appreciating over 400 parks and monuments in the National Park Service. This year, however, the parks are reeling from a slew of bad news that activists say endangers conservation projects, threatened species, and the health of the ocean.

Perhaps most alarming is that the Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, has turned over control of the National Park Service to someone whose LinkedIn profile still lists him as the CEO of an oilfield equipment company—not typically the type of industry that’s aligned with conserving public land for recreation and wildlife habitats.

Tyler Hassen—who has not been vetted by Senate confirmation hearings the way other Cabinet members have been—was the CEO of Basin Energy when President Donald Trump took office. Elon Musk tapped him for the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, earlier this year. And in a late-night order last week, Burgum handed oversight of the Interior Department to Hassen, granting him what appears to be unprecedented ability to cut grants, eliminate positions, and—according to many environmental watchdog groups—wreak havoc on millions of acres of public land.

“DOGE’s unelected bureaucrats in Washington have no idea how to staff a park, a wildlife refuge, or a campground,” Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, said in a statement about the order. The Center for Western Priorities is a nonpartisan organization that advocates for land, water, and communities in the American West. “They have no idea how to manage a forest or prepare for fires in the wildland-urban interface. But Doug Burgum just gave DOGE free rein over all of that.”

The National Park Service was one of many government agencies whose employees were fired en masse back in February. While a court order later reinstated some of those employees, the health and morale of the agency took a serious blow. And this comes at a time when the system has already been understaffed and underfunded for years, with an estimated backlog of USD$23 billion in maintenance projects.

At the same time as the fate of the park system lies in the hands of DOGE, Trump also issued a proclamation that he intends to expand access to commercial fisherman around the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument, which is about 750 miles west of Hawaii and contains seven national wildlife refuges.

The monument protects 490,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean from commercial fishing—nearly twice the size of Texas—and was first established by President George Bush in 2009. President Barack Obama later expanded it in 2014. The coral reefs within the monument are considered some of the most pristine in the world, and many endangered and threatened species live there. Green and hawksbill turtles, giant clams, reef sharks, dolphins, whales, and coconut crabs are just some of the protected wildlife the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) deems as significant.

Trump framed the order as a win for the American seafood industry, and received support from Congresswoman Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, a Republican representative for American Samoa… whose economy relies on fishing. The move has been harshly criticized by scores of environmental advocates, however, who worry that the monument’s fragile ecosystems could be irreparably damaged by expanded fishing access—and that the fishing industry will lose more than it gains.

“Scientific studies have shown that protecting the resources within protected areas like the monument increases the amount of fish available to commercial fishers in waters outside the protected areas,” marine biologist Bob Richmond said in a press release from Earth Justice, an environmental law agency. “This is the wrong move at the wrong time. By raiding what amounts to our children’s marine bank accounts, we are denying them a future of sustainable food from the ocean.”

It is reassuring, however, that environmental activist groups have already taken legal action to thwart efforts to gut the government’s conservation and wildlife protection projects. On Thursday, the Center for Biological Diversity announced that it has sued the Trump administration for failing to release public records about mass firings at NOAA. At least 600 people were fired in February, and the center wants to understand how that will impact the health of the oceans.

“The rash and irresponsible firings at NOAA will have enormously damaging consequences for ocean life and people deserve to know the full extent of it,” Mark Patronella, oceans attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a press release. “Trump has sacked scientists who protected endangered species, surveyed fish populations and restored habitat, but the truth behind NOAA’s dismantling needs to be out in the open. So many whales, sea turtles and corals are already struggling to survive and Trump’s attack on NOAA has cut huge holes in their safety net.”   

In March, the Center for Biological Diversity submitted public records requests for the work plans of each fired employee, aiming to quantify the impact of the mass firings on ocean conservation. The Administration has failed to respond.

While it remains to be seen just how much commercial fishing might encroach on protected territory, it’s not ideal to have fewer scientists on the government payroll as restrictions are rolled back. There are over 165 endangered and threatened species within NOAA’s jurisdiction—including within the boundaries of marine monuments. And they’ve just gotten a lot more vulnerable.

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