<\/div><\/div>“),”filter”:{“nextExceptions”:”img, blockquote, div”,”nextContainsExceptions”:”img, blockquote, a.btn, ao-button”},” renderIntial”:true,”wordCount”:350 }”>

The United States Forest Service is a federal agency that manages 193 million acres of land, an area the size of Texas. Next year, the agency will have to manage this land without its seasonal workforce. In September, the agency announced that it would suspend all seasonal hiring for the 2025 season, a move that would result in the elimination of approximately 2,400 jobs. Almost all of these positions are field jobs, ranging from biologists and forestry workers to trail technicians and recreation staff. In addition, the agency is freezing all external recruitment for permanent positions. The only exception to the hiring freeze is the approximately 11,300 firefighters hired by the agency each year.

According to the agency and its partners, the consequences of these staff reductions will be broad and severe. In the Sept. 17 all-employee call in which he announced the hiring freeze, Forest Service Chief Randy Moore said, “We simply cannot do the same job with less.” employees. » Although the Forest Service has been cutting jobs for decades – about 8,000 jobs in the last 20 years, Moore said – this will be the largest single-year workforce reduction in recent memory.

Seasonal employees perform essential field work and research that extends beyond what many Americans consider to be within the purview of the Forest Service. Rangers patrol whitewater rivers, climbing rocks, and dangerous alpine peaks. Biologists work on critical salmon fisheries. Recreational teams maintain forest roads and cleaning the camp latrines. Employees of all types respond as emergency firefighters when necessary. Staff reductions could leave some avalanche centers, which rely on Forest Service funding, understaffed this winter, according to the American Avalanche Association.

And then there are the trails. According to the Government Accountability Office, the Forest Service has been behind on maintenance for more than a decade and oversees more miles of trails than it can maintain. Removing the majority of its field staff will only make the problem worse.

“This policy will result in an increase in delay in trail maintenance“, both due to Forest Service staff’s lack of attention to trail maintenance, but also due to loss of connection and relationships with partner organizations,” said Mike Passo, executive director of ‘American Trails, a nonprofit partner of the Forest Service, in an email.

Hiker spoke to nearly a dozen permanent and seasonal employees of the Forest Servicemost on condition of anonymity, about their experiences with staff reductions. Many expressed concern that trail crews would simply be unable to operate. They described teams of six seasonal employees disappearing, leaving one or two permanent team leaders trying to make things work. An intern in the National Pathways program, designed to automatically place successful interns in a full-time position with the agency, said she was told her job offer would likely be revoked. Other conservation corps and nonprofit trail workers who viewed Forest Service positions as a career move are rethinking their priorities.

Danica Mooney-Jones, a trail crew leader who has worked with the Forest Service since 2021, is among those out of work next year. Where she works, the trail crew staff will be reduced from five to two, and the broader recreation program will shrink from 13 to just four.

“I moved across the country to work here, for a seasonal job,” she says. “We have people who have worked here for 10 years as seasonal workers and who have made a career thanks to these positions. They were convinced that jobs would not disappear.

Now, she and her former colleagues face a difficult choice: leave their community to find a job on the trails elsewhere, or stay put and find a new career. Mooney Jones considers herself lucky; armed with wilderness EMT trainingshe found local winter employment as a ski patroller. Still, the idea of ​​leaving the Forest Service behind for good is sobering.

“I would be really sad if this was the end of my trail running career,” says Mooney-Jones. “I really enjoy doing the work, I enjoy seeing the product, and I take great pride in the work we do.”

Trail maintenance is important every season, but 2025 could prove a particularly difficult year to cut back on the workers who contribute to it. After Hurricane Helene, southern portions of the Appalachian Trail were closed due to blowdowns, landslides, and washed-out bridges. According to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, there are more than 2,000 trees to be cut down in the AT in Tennessee alone, and many Forest Service access roads from Georgia to Virginia are closed due to the erosion and rockfall.

That’s just for the AT, a popular long-distance trail supported by a nonprofit and hundreds of trained volunteers. Elsewhere in the southern United States, lesser-known trails face similar conditions but rely solely on Forest Service personnel to reopen.

The cuts also left staff and partners wondering how the budget deficit became so severe after several promising years of increased funding.

In 2021, the Biden administration imposed a $15 per hour minimum wage for all federal employees, which increased wages for some entry-level Forest Service jobs. In recent years, the agency has also converted about 1,300 non-fire seasonal positions to permanent jobs. Forest firefighterswho now make up about half of the Forest Service’s workforce, received bonuses of up to $20,000 a year, which were temporarily funded by the bipartisan infrastructure law. Several Forest Service employees said they hope the pay increases for firefighters will also translate into raises for other employees in the field.

But these short-term gains have all but disappeared, replaced by a sudden budget deficit.

In March, the Forest Service requested $8.9 billion in funding, an increase of $500 million from 2024’s $8.37 billion. Over the summer, it was clear that the The agency would probably not receive this amount. In August, Forest Service Chief Randy Moore issued a statement preparing the USFS for a budget cut. With little evidence that Congress would pass a bill funding the government by the end of the year, Moore said during the Sept. 17 all-employee call that “(the Forest Service) has the obligation to plan for the most conservative financing option.” A week later, Congress passed a continuing resolution extending funding levels for 2024 until December 20.

The lower figure Moore referenced comes from the House Interior Appropriations Committee’s proposal, which sets spending limits for all federal land management agencies, including the Forest Service and National Park Service. This year’s proposal includes $8.43 billion for the Forest Service, a technically modest increase from 2024. But last year’s budget was increased by an additional $945 million through bills recovery during the pandemic, a source of financing that has since dried up. And even if the House proposal fully funds firefighters’ pay raises, the proposed budget would still require cuts elsewhere in the agency. All of these details muddy the financial picture, but compared to 2024’s total funding, the agency could face a budget hole of nearly $1 billion next year.

With the Forest Service budget for next year not yet finalized, it is possible that the agency will fill some seasonal positions in the near future. “We are working closely with individual partners to explore creative solutions to fill gaps where we can. And we hope to have more hiring options in the coming year if additional funds become available,” Scott Owen, national press secretary for the Forest Service, wrote in an email.

Even with these sobering financial details, it’s clear that the agency’s decision to balance the books by eliminating seasonal jobs came as a shock to many employees.

“My confidence definitely took a hit,” says Mooney-Jones. “I would consider returning to the Forest Service, but I’m not sure I can do it. It’s a balancing act between how I feel about how we were treated and how much I love the forest.