USA29 August, 20262 min read
Trump Administration Considers Giving Yosemite Strip to Kingsbarn Realty Capital
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Trump administration weighing transfer of 400-meter Yosemite strip to a private developer for road NOTUS investigation alleges year-long covert effort to transfer Yosemite strip; advocates and Democrats criticize
5 outlets told this the same way.
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Yosemite land exchange
The Trump administration is considering giving away a portion of Yosemite National Park to a private developer, with NOTUS reporting that federal staffers have spent over a year quietly working to transfer a roughly quarter-mile strip of the park to a company linked to Nevada-based Kingsbarn Realty Capital.
People reported that the National Park Service has allegedly been arranging a deal to transfer a parcel within the western boundaries of the park, and that Kingsbarn would build a private road connecting one of Yosemite’s main thoroughfares to its 83 acres of land just outside the park.
In exchange for the access, the company would purchase land of equivalent value either near Yosemite or elsewhere in California and hand it over to the park service, according to People citing documents reviewed by the Times.
The People report also quotes the U.S. Department of the Interior saying, “No final decisions have been made,” while the KMVU FOX 26 Medford report says the Interior Department appeared to confirm negotiations had taken place but denied any political pressure to reach a predetermined outcome.
Critics and officials
Don Neubacher, a former supervisor at Yosemite who now serves on the executive council of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, told the Times, “This is so ridiculous, it makes you sick.” The National Parks Conservation Association called the move an unlawful “attack,” with Mark Rose, the group’s senior Sierra Nevada program manager, saying the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle conservation protections are now taking aim at Yosemite with “this secretive, backroom deal.”
Sierra Club executive director Loren Blackford said in a statement, “Yosemite is not Donald Trump’s to give away,” and CleanTechnica published her warning that the deal betrays the purpose of national parks and the promise kept since Abraham Lincoln. The Yosemite NPS Employees Union said it was “appalled” by the ceding of public lands for private interests, calling the proposed trade “antithetical to what we stand for” as stewards of the park.
What’s at stake next
The Interior Department said any land exchange or access proposal involving National Park Service lands would be subject to “required environmental review and public notification processes,” and that “No final decisions have been made,” according to People. People also notes that NPS has the most stringent rules for public land exchanges, requiring both the House and Senate to approve the sale or exchange, and that earlier this year the Interior Department notified Congress it was considering enabling the exchange via the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
In the backlash, South China Morning Post reported that an investigation by NOTUS said the government had been quietly working to transfer a roughly 400-metre strip of the park to a Nevada-based company linked to Kingsbarn Realty Capital. The South China Morning Post account adds that Kingsbarn-controlled limited liability company bought a 33-hectare (83-acre) plot just outside the park in 2024, and that the NPS would receive land of equal value in another part of California that has yet to be determined.