Endangered Livelihoods, Endangered Lands

First the Forest Service and the National Park Service. What’s at stake for the Bureau of Land Management in the path of sweeping layoffs within federal agencies tasked with managing hundreds of millions of acres of our public lands?

Less than a month into the second Trump Administration, sweeping changes at the hands of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have all but gutted the infrastructure of the US Forest Service and the National Park Service through sweeping layoffs to essential land management staff. Employees in the thousands have been let go from both agencies, leaving the employees who remain and swaths of public acreage left in the crosshairs. And the tally of terminated employment continues to rise.

"We have had a tremendous increase in employees contacting us, including over the weekend," Chandra Rosenthal informed us late last week. Rosenthal is the Rocky Mountain Director for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). After the unprecedented layoffs at the US Forest Service, Wild Narrative Project contacted Rosenthal for insight into the potential forced mass exodus from the Bureau of Land Management.

"I’ve talked to BLM employees since the inauguration who were interested in learning more about the deferred resignation but have not heard from anyone at BLM placed on administrative leave or terminated," she said. "We’ve had inquiries from lots of agencies, including BLM on the return to the office policy, how to join a union, and even how to start a union. Everyone at BLM is anticipating the move from Headquarters to the Grand Junction office again."

We asked what could be next for the thousands of now former federal employees who are left without livelihoods and paths forward for themselves and their families. Rosenthal shared that over the last week, PEER has heard from dozens of FS and NPS employees who have been placed on leave or terminated. "We hope that we can help them all. We are working with a handful of other organizations to gather groups of people in similar situations to help them fight illegal personnel actions."

And what about the staff still employed within land management agencies?

"Not only are employees being removed from positions that are important for the agency to function, but those employees who haven’t been removed are walking on eggshells," Rosenthal shared. "It is incredibly disruptive and upsetting to see their co-workers being removed and treated so thoughtlessly. They are worrying that they may be next to go. There is an extreme amount of distrust."

The BLM, for example, oversees 245 million acres of public lands with fewer than 10,000 employees. The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) manages 193 million acres under increasingly stretched staffing and financial resources, while the National Park Service (NPS), responsible for 85 million acres, is burdened with a multi-billion-dollar deferred maintenance backlog as visitation continues to climb. Even before layoffs, advocacy organizations have raised red flags about chronic understaffing at these agencies, pointing to potential crises in areas such as trail upkeep, winter storm damage, threatened wolf populations, and broader ecological management needs — namely swaths of public acreage across failing landscape health standards or yet to even be assessed. These sudden staff reductions effectively pour gasoline on a slow-burning fire, leaving fewer hands to manage a growing list of environmental stressors and an ever-increasing influx of visitors.

As a news organization dedicated to holding power accountable for their policy-making and actions affecting western public lands, we reaffirm our commitment to transparency. Still, we recognize that demanding accountability in the face of unprecedented layoffs, hiring freezes, and communication embargoes is no small task. At its core, this isn’t just about policy; it’s about lives upended by abrupt changes, and the very real possibility that critical information could be lost in the shuffle.

Rosenthal put a fine point on the issue for us. 

"I can’t imagine that much work is getting done,” she said about the employees whose jobs remain. 

But we now know that could change in an instant.