1. United States
2. Va.
3. Letter

Stop the Trump administration's plan to hand over part of Yosemite National Park to a private real estate developer. The Department of the Interior is pressuring the National Park Service to give Kingsbarn Realty Capital — a Nevada developer — either land or an easement inside the park so the company can build a private road connecting its 83-acre property to one of Yosemite's main roads. That road would carve unprecedented private access through federally protected forests for one company's benefit. This deal would shatter a 150-year record of protecting national parks from private interests. As former Yosemite superintendent Cicely Muldoon put it, the park's basic purpose is to "preserve these places unimpaired for future generations, not letting go of that for the purpose of private profit." The national park idea began at Yosemite itself, with Lincoln's preservation of Yosemite Valley. Giving any piece of it to a real estate developer — regardless of what land swap is offered in return — sets a precedent that no park is safe. Use every tool available to block this transfer and protect Yosemite.