Agency Layoffs Jeopardize Our Public Lands 

Late last week, on orders from President Trump’s Office of Personnel Management, our federal land and wildlife management agencies laid off thousands of employees in their one- or two-year probationary period. From the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management to the National Park Service and US Forest Service (USFS), thousands of dedicated public servants suddenly found themselves without a job. For the USFS alone, that number was 3,400 employees. This comes on the heels of last year’s announcement that the USFS will not be hiring non-fire seasonal employees this year leaving many national forests with a skeleton crew as spring rapidly approaches.

A Bleak Future for Wildfire Management

Idaho BHA is deeply concerned about how these layoffs will affect our public lands like our national forests particularly as wildfires become an increasingly destructive force throughout Idaho. In recent years, we’ve seen how wildfires are straining our agencies and at times led to less-than-ideal fire management decisions, but we’ve also seen significant improvements in proactive management of our forests. Since 2022, the U.S. Forest Service’s (USFS) Wildfire Crisis Strategy has invested $2.6 billion in fuels reduction projects and wildfire impact mitigation throughout the west, but there is still lots of work to be done. Last month the USFS in its Wildfire Crisis Annual Report stated that, although significant progress has been made, in some areas there is still more work than there is a workforce. This administration’s layoffs will only further reduce our ability to effectively manage forests. As forestry technicians and silviculturists are laid off, who will be administering timber sales to decrease wildfire fuels or replanting our forests after yet another wildfire? The effects are compounded by spending freezes related to Inflation Reduction Act funds which already halted many fuels reduction projects. The administration is so far setting the stage for us to be perpetually in fight or flight wildland firefighting scenarios which will dramatically increase wildfire impacts on our mountain communities and place more firefighters in harm’s way.

Layoffs Miss the Mark on Many Levels

As an organization, we support efforts to improve the efficacy and efficiency our public land management, but these layoffs do no such thing. The truth is many employees who were laid off are our front line on-the-ground fish, wildlife, and forestry professionals. For many it was their first permanent position in their field and represents a major milestone after several years of seasonal work, grad school, blood, sweat and tears. They are not “pencil pushers”, but rather are the folks getting their hands dirty performing wildfire fuels reduction projects, noxious weed management, road and trail maintenance, and important environmental analysis to name a few. They are not distant Washington DC bureaucrats, but rather live and work in our communities. These are people who dedicated their lives to helping our nation be good stewards of the landscape and now suddenly are jobless. They have families, mortgages, and grocery bills just like the rest of us. We can understand the urge to shrink the size of the federal government, but to do so in this manner is irrational, reckless, and disregards the humanity and excellent work of these civil servants.

Take Action

We call on our Idaho’s delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate to stand-up against these harmful orders coming from the executive branch. As your voice for Wild public lands, waters and wildlife, Idaho BHA will continue to engage on this issue with our congressional delegation and hope to see a change in course from the Trump administration. We also urge our members to take action by sharing their opposition to this decision with federal decision-makers.