Their activities had been suspended by Secretary Ryan Zinke for eight months.
Nine out of 12 members of the U.S. National Park Service advisory board abruptly resigned on Monday night, citing a "profound concern that the mission of stewardship, protection, and advancement of our National Parks has been set aside."
In a letter to Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, board member and former Alaska Governor Tony Knowles accuses Zinke and the Department of Interior (DOI) of refusing the meet with the advisory board as required by law.
As of this writing, the biographies of Knowles and his fellow resigning board members are still up on the NPS website. They describe a mixture of former politicians like Judy Burke, former mayor of Colorado Springs, academics focusing on healthy human/environment relationships like Carolyn Finney, and senior fellows at educational non-profits like Milton Chen. All board members were unpaid volunteers.
In May 2017, Zinke suspended the work of more than 200 National Parks advisory boards, committees and subcommittees, stating in a memo that the DOI needed to review "the charter and charge of each committee" before being allowed to continue with their work. At the time, Zinke suggested that the earliest the groups would be allowed to meet again was September of that year. Earlier this month, a DOI spokesperson told the Washington Post that “Boards have restarted” with no further comment. But Knowles said in an interview with Alaska Public Radio.
All board members who resigned were coming up on the end of their terms in May. Their resignation leaves the Advisory Board nearly decimated at a time when nearly 30 parks are facing reclassification and the cost of entry for many parks is expected to double.