HOW TO ORGANIZE ACTIONS
FOR PUBLIC LANDS

Here you’ll find important steps on how to organize a rally in a national park. You’ll also find messaging.

WHAT

• What does your action look like?
• Flyers to print; resources to hand out
• Key messages

WHERE

• Optics
• Organizing in an NPS First Amendment site

HOW

• Best practices on how to plan an action
• Physical safety
• Know your rights as a federal employee
• Talking to the press
• More inspo: how to protest, sign ideas, chant ideas

WHAT - PROTECT THE PARKS / SAVE PUBLIC LANDS

This protest is in support of our public lands and the civil servants that protect them. Our public lands are nonpartisan and enjoyed by everyone. Rangers and the parks themselves are under threat! By making our voices heard and bringing attention to these issues, we can preserve our national treasures generations to come.

What does your action look like?

• Our protest on 3/22/25 is going to center around storytelling and values. We are encouraging folks to print and write postcards or letters to their representatives that explain why they love public lands, or tell a values based story about that public land. Need some inspiration? Remember to make it your own!

• Then, for a compilation video, please take a video of you reading your postcard out loud or sharing your story of what makes you love public land (vertical video, please!). Share it with us by tagging @resistancerangers on social media.
  
• There are lots of other options, too! Consider which combination of these activities might work best, given your physical site and setup:

• Share stories about why public lands matter to you, a story of a time you were shaped or influenced by public lands, etc.
• Chanting – scroll down for chant ideas and inspo!
• Marching (especially if you’re in a less visible spot – can you march to / past a more visible place?)
• Having speakers address the crowd (will you need amplification?)
• Tables with educational resources (about your park; about civic involvement; etc.)
• A “call or write your congressperson” station (consider having printed scripts and letter templates available)
• A brainstorming station
• Is there a spot where you can be visible (but safe) from a busy street or pedestrian area?

Materials to print and resources to hand out:

• March 22 Action Kit - templates for letters, call scripts, and emails!
• Resistance Rangers Postcards - print your own!
• 3.22 Rally Posters

• 8.5x11
• 4x5
• Socials Story

• Federal Employees Zine
• Junior Resistor Handbook - get yourself sworn in as Junior Ranger – Junior Resistor edition!
• Gather signatures for “Oppose the Fix Our Forests Act”
• We the Builders
• 5 calls (for calling government reps)
• Other educational materials:

• What can you learn and teach people? What does your site mean to you? Is there a story that you can share with the group?
• Visit your park’s website to learn about its history, then tell a story to the group
• Learn and share something about plants or wildlife this time of year

Key Messages:

In short:

• Save Public Lands / Save Parks!

• From Budget Cuts
• From Staffing Cuts
• From Drilling and Privatization

• Parks, People and Public Lands: Not for sale, not forgotten
• Take a stand for public land!

• Protect the staff
• Protect the history
• Public land not for sale

Protect park rangers and all federal workers

Thousands of National Park Service, Forest Service, Fish & Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Land Management employees, as well as workers across the government, were wrongfully terminated by the Trump Administration and Elon Musk’s DOGE Team. These include rangers, scientists, wildland firefighters, first responders, trail crews, maintenance crews, and other mission-critical staff.

• On March 13, two District Court judges ruled these firings of probationary employees illegal and ordered many agencies to reinstate these employees.

• As of March 20, reinstatements have begun for ALL fired employees! This is a huge win to celebrate!
• However: the Department of the Interior is making plans (the “Agency Reduction and Realignment Plan”) for even larger cuts that could terminate 30% or more of Department employees, decimating our ability to safely manage our parks.

• All this DESPITE the fact that the Park Service saw its highest ever visitation in 2024 – over 331 million visits – which is even more than the NPS centennial year in 2016. More people visiting and experiencing parks is great. But that also means we need more rangers (not less!) to provide visitor services and protect park lands and habitats.  
• DOGE has also moved to terminate leases on dozens of park buildings, which house visitor centers, offices, emergency services centers, and priceless artifacts. There are no plans for how park units are supposed to continue accomplishing their missions without these buildings.

Keep public lands in public hands

By Executive Order, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright are working to “Unleash American Energy” by revoking restrictions and reviewing federal lands for resource extraction. All federal lands are at risk including NPS, USFS, BLM, and other public lands.

• Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands National Monuments, both newly-designated NPS sites in California totaling nearly a million acres of land, are under threat. The Trump administration has stated they planned to eliminate these two monuments and their accompanying land protections.

• The Antiquities Act of 1906, which gives a president authority to create national monuments, does not include the authority to rescind them.

• Another executive order takes aim at National Forests, directing the US Forest Service “to fully exploit” its lands for timber production. The language orders agencies to weaken environmental and wildlife protections through NEPA (the National Environmental Protection Act) and the ESA (Endangered Species Act), in order to log as widely and quickly as possible.

Speak up for your parks

Make your voice heard by attending protests and calling your representatives. Talk to your community and support your local parks and federal employees.

WHERE

Optics

• A protest is as good as its optics are. 100 people in a football field looks small, 5 people in doorway looks huge. Find ways to make yourself seem bigger than you are–pick strategic locations where you will seem larger.
• Pick a spot with high visibility! We can chant to trees all we want, but having the general public hear/see us is significant.
• One of the best outcomes of a protest is a great photo op. Plan your protest with visuals in mind: a protest with a great background goes far, whether that background is the park sign or a sweeping vista. Make sure someone is on site to photograph.

• Please share your photos and videos on social media! Continuing coverage in the news and on social media amplifies the impact of your actions. Tag @ResistanceRangers so we can reshare them

• If you’re not confident a lot of people will show up, pick a protest that relies on fewer people: hanging a flag in distress, handing out flyers for cars in line or putting them on the cars in parking lots, taking over park webcams etc.

Organizing in an NPS First Amendment site

1. Look up First Amendment sites in your park

1. This may be on your park’s website under Special Use Permits or First Amendment Activity
2. If you cannot find this information on the website, search “SITE NAME Superintendent Compendium” in a search engine and look for the section about First Amendment activity
3. If you cannot find this, call the park directly and ask them about the locations (and permitting process if need be) – even if you may not need a permit, it’s always a good idea to let the park know you will be there

2. If this process seems challenging, you can also consider doing this protest in a gateway town or just outside of the park (consider contacting the town ahead of time, if you won’t be on park land)
3. Determine if you will need to apply for a First Amendment permit. You only need a permit if:

1. You will have more than 25 people
2. You plan to bring any structures like a table or podium
3. You plan to have amplified noise (speakers or megaphones)
4. You want to be at a different location that’s not the designated area  

4. If you need to apply for a permit:

1. Look on your park’s website for the permit application
2. Be as specific as possible in your time, duration, and location
3. Apply as early as possible
4. If no contact or permit information is found on the site, search the superintendent compendium, and if not there as well, call the park

5. Once you have a permit (if needed), make sure to read and follow the guidelines on the permit. They will include the following:

1. Designated locations and march routes
2. Time, location, duration

6. Your rights:

1. First Amendment rights allow you to say almost anything, except for inflammatory things that clearly incite violence
2. You can hand out only FREE material – there should not be any monetary transactions (that would require a commercial permit)
3. Current NPS employees: if you are off duty, you must not wear anything that implies your connection to the NPS - this includes anything with the arrowhead
4. Current NPS employees - if you are on duty, you must show neutrality towards the activity

7. Day of and during

1. Make sure participants don’t leave any trash or anything for staff to clean up

HOW

Best Practices on how to plan an action

• “Sign-in” sheet: this is a good way to collect email addresses from people who already are interested and supportive
• Pre-made signs and a sign-making station: people will show up without signs, and this is a great way to keep them included, involved and engaged.
• Write-Your-Reps / Thank-A-Ranger station: prepare postcards and have an outline for participants to write to their representatives (and/or have them write/sign a card thanking your local park/forest service/etc rangers)!
• Clean up the site afterwards: bring trash bags and encourage protesters to pick up trash.
• Print out chants or have them saved on your phone
• Safety messages throughout
• Land acknowledgements throughout, if that feels right to your site and relationship with Tribes
• Bring food, snacks, water
• Consider planning an organized event in the park afterwards

Physical Safety

• Plan ahead with designated routes and meeting points
• Prepare for the weather
• Things to consider bringing

• First aid equipment
• Water
• Snacks
• Face covering if you don’t want to be photographed
• Physical identification

• Delegate responsibility. Potential roles:

• Event coordinator
• Chants leader
• Medically trained persons/safety leader
• Photographers / videographers
• Speaker for the press
• Speaker for law enforcement
• Legal Observer
• De-escalators

• Consider wearing high visibility clothing, especially in leadership/medical roles
• Maintain situational awareness

• Be aware of the potential for counter protestors, even though that’s unlikely. Consider having a designated person who’s comfortable starting a friendly conversation and de-escalating.
• Be prepared to talk to park staff or law enforcement rangers, especially if you don’t have a permit or if they weren’t notified ahead of time – be friendly, and know the rules for what’s allowed.
• Consider your safety near roads and parking lots or other potential hazards.

These are non-violent, non-arrestable actions. Plan your actions accordingly. If you’re uncertain, DM Resistance Rangers. 

Know Your Rights As a Federal Employee

• Do’s

• Exercise your first amendment rights as a private citizen
• Protest off duty, out of uniform with no insignia identifying who you work for
• “Protect federal jobs!”
• Be careful of what you post to your personal social media.

• If your social media account is prominently of you as an NPS employee, or your profile picture is of you in uniform, this could imply official endorsement.
• Consider putting “views are my own and not an official endorsement of the NPS” in your bio

• Learn more about your rights
• A Guide to the Hatch Act for Federal Employees - OSC.gov

• Don’t’s

• Identify as a public servant/park ranger/employee of the NPS etc.
• Protest on duty, in uniform, and/or wearing any insignia indicating agency
• “Protect our jobs!”
• Do not print protest materials on work time or with any work resources (printer copier computer phone etc)
• Do not show up to the protest on work time, even if out of uniform
• Drive a government owned vehicle to a protest
• Do not talk to press at the protest but if you do, do not identify yourself as a federal employee, on the record.

MORE INSPO FOR PROTEST TYPES

There’s such variety in park sites, we trust you to select the type of protest that’s right for your site and the number of people you think you can get. After considering optics, safety, first amendment areas, and risk level, consider the following list:

• Hand out flyers to cars
• Put a sign in front of park webcams (google the park + webcams to see if they have one, and be sure to have someone on standby to get a screenshot of it)
• Hang a flag upside down
• March in a gateway town
• Rally inside the park
• Picket around the park sign
• Share a photo online.

Chants and protest quips:

“Public land”

• "Public Lands! Not Private Hands!"
• Protect the parks! (X3)
• “When I say nature (or rangers, our parks, forests, history…) you say needs us!”

• Call: “Nature”
• Response: “Needs us!”

• No more coal, no more oil, keep your carbon in the soil!
• We are (beat) unstoppable, a better world is possible!
• Stand up fight back call/response

• When the land we love is under attack, what do we do?
• Stand up, fight back!
• When the air we breathe is under attack, what do we do?
• Stand up, fight back!
• When the water we drink is under attack, what do we do?
• Stand up, fight back!
• When the planet we need is under attack, what do we do?
• Stand up, fight back!
• What do we do?
• Stand up, fight back!

• Public lands / As what we need / Not billionaires / And corporate greed
•  "Parks for the people! Bring back our staff!"
• “Whose parks?” “Our parks!”
• The people’s land
  The people’s park
  They’ll never belong
  To a monarch
• Smokey, Rangers, me and you
  Protecting parks is what we do!
• We are the people
  Hear our anger
  Your cuts to parks
  Put earth in danger!

Rangers/federal employees

• “Reinstate our rangers!”
• “No ranger?” “You’re in danger!”
• “Ain't no power like the power of the people cause the power of the people don't stop! [Say what?!?]”
• "Guardians Betrayed! Their Jobs We'll Save!"
• "No More Cuts! No More Lies! Protect Our Park Before It Dies!"
• "They Steal Our Jobs, They Steal Our Land! We don't sit down we Take a Stand!"
• “What do we want?” Rangers! “When do we want them?” Now!

•  “If parks don’t get them?” Shut them down! (X3, slower on the last one)

• Protect our lands
  Defend our Parks
  No more firing in Parks

Pro-democracy / anti-facist

• Hey hey, ho ho! Elon musk has got to go!
• Show us what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like!
• “No Trump! No KKK! No fascist USA!”

Sign inspiration

• Do Not Obey in Advance
• Trees Over Tyranny
• Rangers have your back, billionaires don’t
• Only YOU can save public lands
• No Doge allowed
• This musk stop
• Rehire rangers
• The lorax
• Be a Patriot - Support your Park Rangers
• Money Grows on These Trees
• Don’t Pave Over Paradise
• Flat hat fan club
• Rangers just wanna help!
• No ranger? You’re in danger!
• Put DOGE on a leash!