The Trump administration is reportedly pushing to give a parcel of land inside Yosemite, the country’s first national park and one of its most popular, to a Nevada-based private developer.
Staff with the National Park Service have been exploring how the agency can give a quarter-mile parcel to a company operated by Kingsbarn Realty Capital, the news outlet Notus reported on Friday, citing agency documents and unnamed sources “directly familiar with discussions”.
The company already owns an ۸۳-acre (۳۴-hectare) plot of undeveloped land immediately outside the park. The previous owner of that land had hoped to create a resort and unsuccessfully lobbied the federal government for decades to allow him to construct a private road in the park, the outlet reported.
The current access road to the land, which Kingsbarn bought in ۲۰۲۴, is more than ۱۰ miles (۱۶km) from the nearest park entrance and would require travelers to take a longer, indirect route to reach popular park attractions. Jeff Pori, the company’s CEO, wants to construct a short road to connect the parcel to a central Yosemite route, according to Notus.
Administration officials have proposed that the park service give up the land in exchange for equally valuable land elsewhere in California, the outlet reported. The interior department’s top political leaders support the proposal, according to sources cited by Notus, and the situation has created tension inside the park service.
In a statement to the Guardian, Aubrie Spady, an interior department spokesperson, rejected the reporting, arguing there “has been no political pressure to reach a predetermined outcome”, and said “suggesting the Department is secretly working to hand over National Park Service land to a private developer [is] false.”
The report has sparked outrage among National Park Service supporters and environmental advocates. Jayson O’Neill, spokesperson for Save Our Parks, described it as part of a “push to sell off public lands and privatize America’s national parks” by the US interior secretary, Doug Burgum.
“If mismanaging parks and stealing entrance fees for Trump’s DC vanity projects wasn’t enough, now Americans find out Doug Burgum and his cronies spent a year secretly negotiating to hand a piece of Yosemite national park over to a well-connected developer, all while lying to us about protecting them,” O’Neill said.
“National parks belong to the American people, not monied developers who are part of Trump’s donor class.”
Both of California’s senators have expressed their opposition to efforts to develop the road, as has Jared Huffman, the Democratic California congressman representing the state’s north coast.
“Our parks belong to all of us. These places should be protected for every generation, not sold off to Trump’s ultra-wealthy friends to profit off of,” Huffman said. “I will fight this, both for Yosemite and for every treasured park that would be up for grabs if this domino falls.”
The interior department said no final decisions had been reached and that any land exchange or access proposal would be “subject to all applicable federal laws, regulations and Departmental policies, including required environmental review and public notification processes”.
