How will government layoffs impact public lands?
Yellowstone National Park, WY
Don White
Damage toll from Trump administration cuts continues to climb
Over a month has passed since the “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” saw thousands of public lands workers immediately and wrongfully terminated by the Trump administration. Though a federal judge recently ruled that the terminations were illegal and ordered that more than 16,000 workers to be reinstated, the administration is aggressively digging in its heels. Meanwhile, planned “reductions-in-force” across federal agencies mean that many of these workers may be (legally) told their jobs no longer exist.
However the chips fall, the impacts of cuts to the federal agencies that manage public lands will affect the entire nation. From national parks to wildlife refuges, the places that we all love and rely upon will suffer—and so will our enjoyment of those places.
Here’s how we expect to see—or have already seen—impacts to public lands:
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Curtailed visitor services.
Some national parks have already announced reductions or outright suspension of certain services: entrance stations, visitor centers, guided tours. Basic custodial and management work on public lands will also likely be impacted, which could mean anything from unkempt trails to overflowing toilets and trash cans. This comes at a time when national parks are seeing record attendance.
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Diminished emergency—including wildfire—response.
The terminations and ongoing hiring freezes have already seriously harmed the nation’s ability to prevent and combat extreme wildfires. In Lake Tahoe, for example, forest fuel reduction work has stalled in advance of the fire season. Additionally, cuts to ranger staff will hamper search-and-rescue operations.
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Harm to wildlife and wild places.
At the Fish and Wildlife Service, an agency already severely understaffed, the terminations have zeroed in on hundreds of biologists and environmental scientists who are dedicated to fighting the biodiversity crisis. Elsewhere in the Department of the Interior, cuts at the Bureau of Land Management mean less people are working to preserve “areas of critical environmental concern” across the nation.
