By Steven Cohen, Ph.D., Director of the M.S. in Sustainability Management program, School of Professional Studies
Last week, I wrote about New York City’s determined effort to increase the size of our urban forest. While our local government is struggling to grow our trees, the Trump Administration is quietly destroying our country’s programs to maintain our forests. The cutbacks are extensive and serious. There is a dramatic contrast between local and national priorities.
The Trump Administration's 2026 and 2027 budget proposals seek to reduce non-fire United States Forest Service staff by about one-third to one-half of 2024 levels. Through early retirements, resignations, and buyouts, the Service has already lost about 5,900 people or approximately 16% of its staff. Proposed 2026 staffing levels cut an additional 30% or more of staff. Perhaps the most short-sighted cut is the proposal to eliminate 55 of the Forest Service’s 77 research stations. This adheres to the Trump Administration policy to eliminate scientific research and base decisions on ideology, fantasy, or “gut instincts.”
According to Eric Niiler of the New York Times:
“At the same time the administration is reorganizing the Forest Service, President Trump is proposing to eliminate its entire $309 million research and development budget and to cut all of the agency’s 1,215 scientific positions. The White House budget plan would reduce the overall number of Forest Service employees to 12,000 from 30,000… The Forest Service was created in 1905 and, eight years later, officials added a research division to help manage forests based on science. They built labs to study the variety of trees, soils and wildlife from Florida to Alaska. Today, the agency manages 193 million acres of forests and grasslands, including 39 percent of all land in Idaho, 29 percent of Washington, and 25 percent of Oregon. Unlike academic studies that are short-lived because of grant funding cycles, Forest Service studies often last decades as researchers collect data on changes in the snowpack on mountaintops or how water quality in streams changes after logging or wildfires.”
The reduction of scientific research is part of the Administration’s overall anti-science stance that has driven environmental scientists from the EPA, medical scientists from the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control, and caused massive reductions in university-based science. In a more complex and fast-changing world, stripping America of its historic advantage in scientific expertise may prove to be this administration’s gravest long-term threat to our nation’s economic growth and quality of life.
Programs providing technical and financial assistance to non-federal landowners are also eliminated in the proposed budget. The Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program, which funds large-scale ecological projects, is eliminated in the Trump budget. Capital improvement and maintenance budgets for roads, trails, and facilities are substantially reduced. The administration plans to transfer the $2.4 billion Wildland Fire Management budget from the Forest Service, with its decades of experience fighting forest fires, to a new "U.S. Wildland Fire Service" under the Department of the Interior.
Of course, many of these budget cuts will be resisted by Congress and may not come to pass. What is already underway, the Forest Service in March of this year called a “common sense restructuring.” While disruptive, the move of headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City, Utah, makes some sense in bringing management closer to most of this nation’s forests. In this age of Zoom meetings and low-cost communication, proximity to decision makers in the nation’s capital is not as critical as it once was. Still, some key staff may need to resign because family or other considerations require that they remain in DC. Potentially more destructive is eliminating nine regional offices to open a state-based operation with 15 state directors. Sadly, that’s not the worst change underway. The policy most destructive of forest management is the effort to increase the emphasis on cutting down trees for lumber. The proposed budget increases spending on managing timber sales from $39 million to $175 million.
The focus on resource exploitation rather than preservation is clearly articulated throughout the Administration. Whatever powers or pretext the Administration can use to promote mining or resource exploitation is employed. Again, according to Niiler:
“On April 3, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins issued a “national forest emergency” order that removes environmental protections and expedites logging in 113 million acres of forests that were deemed at risk of insect infestation, disease or wildfire. In January, Ms. Rollins, whose department oversees the Forest Service, relaxed rules for oil and gas drilling and mining on Forest Service lands.”
The “national forest emergency” is another effort to assert emergency powers to respond to self-inflicted wounds. Reduction of trail maintenance and of expert firefighting staff will impact the tourist business, an economic asset central to the communities located near these forests and, somehow, being lost in the rush to harvest timber and drill for oil. If fires burn out of control and destroy forests, there are not only no trees to visit, but there are also none to sell for lumber. National Forests and National Parks are economic assets that attract tourists from near and far. According to a September 2025 report by the National Park Service:
“…visitor spending in communities near national parks in 2024 resulted in a $56.3 billion benefit to the nation’s economy. Spending by national park visitors contributes to local, regional and U.S. economies, supporting a vibrant tourism industry in gateway communities…The National Park Service report, 2024 National Park Visitor Spending Effects, finds that visitors spent $29 billion in communities near national parks. This spending provided $18.8 billion in labor income and $56.3 in economic output to the U.S. economy. The lodging sector had the highest direct contributions with $11.1 billion in economic output. Restaurants received the next greatest direct contributions with $5.7 billion in economic output.”
The Forest Service estimates that visitors contribute to the economy of many communities near the national forests. They estimate the forests create 167,300 jobs and contribute $16.24 billion to the gross domestic product. Both the National Parks and National Forests are popular sites for recreation. In 2025, about 323 million visits were reported by the National Park Service, and an estimated 160 million people visited the National Forests. It is important to understand the differences in the data, since one person might make five visits to a National Park and be counted five times, while the Forest Service attempts to estimate the number of people who visit. One difference between National Parks and Forests is that National Parks usually require an entrance fee and tend to be world famous, while National Forests are lower key and often include facilities that enable camping, hiking, hunting, fishing, skiing, and similar activities. Many visitors combine both on the same trip; for example, someone visiting the Grand Canyon might also use nearby national forest campgrounds, trails, or roads. Both the Forests and National Parks are economic engines for rural communities.
The cuts in research, maintenance, and service are bad enough, but much worse is the effort to reorganize firefighting. According to Emily Bass of the Breakthrough Institute:
“The Western United States is facing another severe fire season. More than 12 million acres have burned so far in 2026, already surpassing the total cumulative area burnt by wildfires in all of 2024…Climatic conditions and a build up of hazardous fuels—combustible vegetation such as dry grass, dense brush, and fallen branches—are primary drivers of this year's worrying start. But, Trump may be fanning the flames. The administration’s sweeping reorganization of U.S. land management agencies is making it harder to proactively prevent wildfires and jeopardizing better forest policy currently before Congress, together worsening future fire seasons… Alongside internal changes at DOI, USDA initiated a sweeping reorganization of its own earlier this year. In March, the Forest Service announced it would be relocating its headquarters to Salt Lake City, Utah, closing regional offices, and restructuring to a state based leadership model. These changes risk further exacerbating operational challenges that Trump’s Forest Chief Tom Schultz himself said impacted the agency’s ability to meet annual goals for prescribed fire.”
The President may believe that climate change is a hoax, but no one has told the forests, which continue to burn at historic rates due to the impact of climate-accelerated extreme weather events bringing heat, droughts, and high winds. The Trump Administration’s willful disregard of managerial, analytic, and scientific expertise has resulted in the wanton destruction of organizational capacity throughout the federal government. Implementing the blueprint of Project 2025 has caused hunger in America, starvation and disease in Africa, intelligence and strategic failure in the Middle East, increased cost of living, and soon will result in a dramatic loss of this nation’s forests. I suppose if you believe that, except for national defense, we don’t really need a federal government, the loss of the national government’s organizational capacity is not only nothing to worry about, but something to celebrate. When the orange sky from our burning forests pollutes the air all of us breathe, perhaps then we will reconsider the direction we are heading in.
Views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Columbia School of Professional Studies or Columbia University.
About the Program
The Columbia University M.S. in Sustainability Management program offered by the School of Professional Studies in partnership with the Climate School provides students cutting-edge policy and management tools they can use to help public and private organizations and governments address environmental impacts and risks, pollution control, and remediation to achieve sustainability. The program is customized for working professionals and is offered as both a full- and part-time course of study.
