America's national parks have faced a difficult reckoning over the past year. The Grand Canyon has been struck by devastating floods in the past week, triggering search and rescue missions and damaging nearly 40% of the park's sole water pipeline. It was the second natural disaster to hit the park within a year, following wildfires on its northern edge in 2025.

The Grand Canyon is not the only national park battling the elements. Yosemite National Park is fighting wildfires and has shut down Highway 140 as a result. Now the park stands to lose land again—but this time the cause is not Mother Nature. According to reports from CNN and NOTUS, the National Park Service and private developer Kingsbarn Realty Capital are reportedly discussing the transfer of about 700 feet of the park so the developer can build a road to a parcel of land abutting the national park.

Any disposal of National Park Service land would be unusual: park boundaries are generally set by Congress, and transferring land out of a national park has historically required legislative action rather than an administrative deal alone. The reported negotiations come amid broader scrutiny of how the Trump administration manages public lands.

In a statement to Fortune, the Department of the Interior, which includes the National Park Service, said there has been "no political pressure to reach a predetermined outcome" and that "no final decisions have been made."

"Any land exchange or access proposal involving National Park Service lands would be subject to all applicable federal laws, regulations and Departmental policies, including required environmental review and public notification processes," the statement read. "If a proposal advances, the Department will follow established procedures to ensure appropriate coordination, transparency and public involvement consistent with federal law."

Kingsbarn Realty Capital told Fortune it has been working on a deal for a 700-foot-long patch of land for close to a year.

"Kingsbarn owns an approximately 83-acre parcel of land along the west edge of Yosemite National Park, just outside of the Park's western boundary line," the company said in a statement. "The Company has been engaged in discussions with the National Park Service (NPS) to gain access from the Property to Big Oak Flat Road, which is situated a few hundred feet away."

The 83-acre parcel, generally known as Hazel Green Ranch, is a "historically significant" property that served as a stagecoach route into Yosemite from the late 1800s into the early part of the twentieth century. The property ceased to serve as a park entrance when automobiles replaced stagecoaches. Such inholdings—private parcels adjacent to or surrounded by parkland—are common across the National Park System, and access disputes involving them have repeatedly tested the boundaries of federal land-transfer rules.

Kingsbarn is seeking the strip of land to build a road that would give guests and residents of Hazel Green Ranch access to Yosemite National Park, bypassing the current 11 miles of forestry roads through Stanislaus National Forest.

Land Use Law

The law governing the acquisition of public park land is unclear. According to the National Park Service's FAQ site, "only states, counties, municipalities, and similar government entities may acquire surplus federal property to be used for park and recreational use through the National Park Service Federal Lands to Parks program."

The Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management, however, states on its website that the department "does occasionally sell parcels of public land" where its "land-use planning finds it to be appropriate and in the public interest." The department further states that the land must meet one of three criteria: the land consists of scattered, isolated tracts that are difficult to manage; the land was acquired for a specific purpose and is no longer needed for that purpose; or disposing of the land will serve important public objectives, such as community expansion or economic development.

"Hazel Green has agreed to build and maintain this road at its expense to meet all federal, state, and local standards," Lanny Davis, an attorney representing Kingsbarn and Pori, told Fortune. "It is good for the environment, keeps cars off the Forest Service roads, and helps ease congestion in, and around, Yosemite National Park. Clearly, these benefits are in the public interest."

Rather than directly purchasing the land, Kingsbarn intends to pursue an exchange. The company said it has held a dozen meetings with the National Park Service to find a "legal way" to acquire the land.

"We've been negotiating the mechanics of a land exchange that is legal," Davis said. "A purchase of a right of way or even the actual property from the Park Service is not legal by a private developer. The only thing that's a legal way of doing it is an exchange."

What happens next rests heavily on process: any advancing proposal would trigger environmental review and public notification, giving conservation groups and local residents an opportunity to weigh in before a transfer could be finalized.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.