April 20, 2026

You may by now have heard that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is reorganizing the Forest Service, closing regional offices and moving the national headquarters from Washington D.C. to Salt Lake City, UT. You may also have heard that the move is meant to improve efficiency and ultimately create better, more effective management of the more than 193 million acres of national forest land that we collectively own (along with future generations). 

Pardon us, but we’re skeptical that this reorganization will have the intended results. Here are thirteen reasons why:

• Brooke Rollins

  As Secretary of Agriculture, Rollins is leading the USDA reorganization with little relevant experience in public land management. Her time with the agency has proven her priorities lie in extractive industries, not in the multi-use mission of the Forest Service. In public statements, Rollins has supported reducing federal oversight and accelerating permitting for energy and infrastructure projects on national forest lands, and removing environmental protections. 

• Chief Schultz:
  

  The current Chief of the Forest Service, Tom Schultz, has shown little opposition to gutting the staff and resources of the venerable agency he oversees. Leadership sets the tone, and a Chief who does not advocate for adequate resources and staff, scientific progress, and recreation access, cannot be trusted to protect public lands or the integrity of the Forest Service.

• Michael Boren:

  Boren, Under Secretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment tasked with overseeing the Forest Service, is a billionaire founder of a tech company, and owner of a large property inside Idaho’s Sawtooth National Recreation Area, where not long ago he built an illegal private airstrip, buzzed a trail crew with his helicopter and filed a defamation lawsuit against WWA founder Sarah Michael and others because they protested his actions. All moves that demonstrate he favors personal interests over conservation and the public’s interests in our public lands.

• BLM Re-org under Trump’s First Term:

  During Trump’s first term, the Bureau of Land Management was similarly “reorganized.” Its headquarters were relocated to Grand Junction, Colorado and in the process, senior leadership was lost. Many folks refused to relocate and management is still recovering. Now that agency mostly seems focused on ignoring public comments and encouraging unfettered oil and gas development amidst the 1000-year old ruins of Chaco Canyon National Historic Park.

• Project 2025:

  This reorganization looks and feels like Project 2025 in action. The blueprint published by the Heritage Foundation, explicitly called for restructuring of the federal land management agencies, reducing their regulatory authority, and opening more public land to development.

• Burgum’s actions at Interior:

  The parallel gutting of the Department of Interior under Doug Burgum’s leadership, gives us another preview of the direction the USFS is headed. The department fast-tracked extractive permits, rolled back conservation protections, and sidelined career scientists. The USFS reorganization appears to follow the same template, and the outcomes for watershed health, wildlife habitat, and recreation access will likely be just as damaging.

• Valentine’s Day, 2025:

  On February 14, 2025, the Trump Administration issued mass termination notices to thousands of federal employees across several agencies. The day became known as the Valentine’s Day Massacre. At  least 3,400 staffers were fired from the Forest Service alone, and another 2,300 from the Department of Interior, which oversees the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. From what we’ve seen in the year since, this was the beginning of an ongoing period of plummeting morale and gutted capacity by the agencies and people left trying to keep America’s public lands functioning. 

• Ongoing Reductions in Force and Capacity:

  Under the current administration, the USFS has lost around 16% of its workforce and the administration’s proposed FY27 budget would further restrict agency funding by 40%. Without trail crew members, recreation planners, wilderness rangers, biologists, GIS planners, and the local experts who know these landscapes intimately, the consequences are direct. In winter, that means fewer staff to manage motorized/non-motorized conflicts, maintain winter trailheads, or coordinate with avalanche centers. Reorganizing a depleted agency doesn’t rebuild it, it just reshuffles the loss.

• The Big Beautiful Bill:
  

  Remember when they tried to sell off our public lands? Even without that little red-herring provision, the administration’s signature domestic policy law was yet another massive giveaway to oil and gas and other extractive interests, reducing important protections for public lands, slashing royalties paid to the American public, cutting off public comment, and generally walking us back about ten steps in terms of climate progress. This administration has lost the public’s trust in its ability to make sensible decisions for the management of public lands, making it hard to view this reorganization as a well-intended effort to bolster common sense management and streamline work functions. 

• The proposed Roadless Rule Rescission:

  The Roadless Rule has been one of the most important policies protecting backcountry landscapes (eg. primo backcountry skiing and mountain biking) from road-building and industrial development. Revising or weakening it would open millions of acres of currently protected roadless areas to logging, mining, and motorized incursion, directly threatening the quiet, untracked landscapes that define the backcountry experience and the wildlife that depends on undisturbed winter habitat. 

• Pause on Travel Management Planning:

  Travel Management Planning is the process by which the USFS designates where motorized and non-motorized use is permitted. Under the EXPLORE Act, all national forests with adequate snowfall are required to create winter travel plans within the next decade. Currently, travel management planning is paused, and without sufficient staff, these plans will likely go unfinished and unimplemented.

• Ambler Road:

  President Trump overturned the Bureau of Land Management’s 2024 decision denying right of way for the Ambler Road project in Alaska’s Brooks Range. Disregarding tens of thousands of public comments and opening the door to a sprawling mining district. The 211-mile industrial road would cross nearly 3,000 streams, fragment critical caribou migration routes, and threaten fish populations that the Alaskan communities depend on for food. If this administration can turn a blind eye to the public interests, and bulldoze one of the wildest landscapes for foreign profit, there is little reason to trust that it has multi-use management and well-rounded stewardship at heart.

• Boundary Waters:

  Same playbook as the Ambler Road, just a different landscape. This self-proclaimed “America First” administration again chose profit over public this week when the Senate ruled to allow a Chilean company to mine in national forests adjacent to the Boundary Water Wilderness, threatening the pristine ecosystems of northern Minnesota and Canada. The pattern here is undeniable, this administration does not see public land as a shared resource but rather an opportunity for profit and exploitation.

There’s more, but you get the gist.

Even before this administration, it’s been clear that the USFS needs help managing 193+ million acres of public land to balance wildfire, climate change, recreation demand, and ecological health. We know it’s hard work and we also know first-hand that it depends on people and scientific understanding of the landscape. We have never disputed that the agency needs reform, what we dispute is the notion that this reorganization is reform at all. Winter Wildlands Alliance believes that we need a well-resourced and capable USFS agency—responsible to the public rather than to corporations and private industry—to tackle the increasingly challenging nature of managing a vast public landscape, fairly balancing competing interests, and ensuring our natural resources are maintained for many generations to come. We see no evidence that the proposed USFS reorganization (combined with the Administration’s numerous other actions to gut the agency) is the right decision to effectively empower the USFS to carry out its mission. 

You can view the Forest Service’s reorganization factsheet here. 

It may take a while to feel the impacts of all of this. Meanwhile, we could use your help. Let us know how things are faring on your local public lands. Is the forest service showing up for you and for the places you care about? Feel free to send us an email at info@winterwildlands.org