The Mountaineers
Forest Service staff play a critical role in stewarding our national forests - from maintaining trails and facilities to overseeing recreation planning and responding to wildfire. The Mountaineers deeply values the expertise and dedication of these land managers, who have persevered through challenges and uncertainty over the last few years to keep the landscapes we love resilient and accessible for outdoor recreation.
At the end of last summer, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that they were seeking to reorganize the Forest Service. Our community spoke up to share concerns about the proposal and advocate for maintaining staffing levels and local capacity. The Forest Service recently released a sweeping reorganization plan that will change how the agency is structured - relocating its headquarters, consolidating functions, and changing how decisions are made across the country.
We acknowledge the opportunities to improve efficiency and reduce bureaucracy at the Forest Service. But in the context of ongoing funding and staffing cuts and reduced environmental protections, we are concerned that these changes could ultimately undermine the agency’s ability to sustainably steward our public lands.
We can’t stop the reorganization, but Congress will play an important role in the future of the agency and its ability to steward our forests. Speak up now to ask your lawmakers to provide robust oversight over the reorganization process and reject funding cuts to the Forest Service in the next federal budget.
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
This reorganization is not happening in isolation - it’s part of a broader pattern shaping the future of public lands management in the U.S. For decades, the Forest Service has faced chronic underfunding and understaffing that has limited its ability to keep pace with rising visitation and the growing impacts of climate change.
More recently, these challenges have intensified: staffing losses have accelerated under the current administration’s workforce reductions, with nearly 5,000 employees leaving the Forest Service in 2025 alone. These losses have hit recreation especially hard, with some forests in Washington losing as much as 70% of their recreation staff. These compounding challenges are already having visible impacts on the ground with deteriorating trails and a growing backlog of deferred infrastructure maintenance.
At the same time, the administration has proposed additional funding cuts that would further reduce the agency’s capacity and cut trail maintenance funding by more than half. This is all unfolding alongside broader policy shifts that emphasize increased timber production and seek to roll back long-standing conservation and recreation protections like the Roadless Rule. This pattern raises concerns that this reorganization could further reduce the agency’s capacity to support recreation and conservation and accelerate a shift toward increased resource extraction.
WHAT WILL REORGANIZATION LOOK LIKE?
The reorganization plan will make significant changes to the Forest Service’s structure and operation. One of the most visible changes is the relocation of the agency’s headquarters from Washington D.C. to Salt Lake City, Utah. While the administration has not announced any staff reductions accompanying the reorganization, we are concerned that the headquarters relocation will result in the loss of critical capacity and irreplaceable expertise. When the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) made a similar move in 2019 - relocating its headquarters from D.C. to Colorado - approximately 87% of employees left the agency. Staff attrition related to relocation would erode institutional knowledge and strain the agency’s ability to effectively manage our national forests.
The plan also calls for eliminating the agency’s longstanding regional structure and instead transitioning to a network of 15 State Directors. Regional offices will be closed or repurposed, and their functions will move to a handful of new Operations Service Centers located in California, Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Georgia. While this approach may streamline layers of management, it raises questions about how the many functions currently carried out by regional offices will be fulfilled under the new structure. This shift could make it more difficult to maintain local knowledge and partnerships.
In addition, the agency plans to centralize its research and development branch under one national leadership team based in Fort Collins, Colorado. Some research stations will be retained, but many others, including facilities in Seattle and Wenatchee, will be closed. These research programs play an important role in informing forest management and climate resilience, and their loss could have long-term impacts on how national forest lands are studied and managed.
HOW THE MOUNTAINEERS IS ADVOCATING
The reorganization represents a substantial pivot in how the Forest Service functions. We support efforts to improve efficiency and help the agency better fulfill its mission under growing challenges. However, we are concerned that the proposed changes will lead to the loss of institutional knowledge, regional expertise, and research capacity that are critical to effectively stewarding our public lands.
We are engaging with our partners at the Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Regional Office to better understand the local impacts of shifting away from a regional model. We work closely with leadership and special uses program staff at the Regional Office and hope to maintain these strong partnerships through the agency’s transition. We don’t currently anticipate the reorganization to have any direct impacts on Mountaineers programs, as our special uses permits and branch stewardship agreements operate on the national forest and ranger district level.
The Mountaineers is sharing our concerns with Washington's congressional delegation and urging them to provide oversight over the restructuring process to ensure that the Forest Service continues to uphold its multiple use mission and does not deprioritize recreation and conservation.
In January, Congress rejected the administration’s proposed funding cuts to the Forest Service, signaling their support for a well-resourced agency. We are urging lawmakers to do so again in the next federal budget cycle and to provide the sustained investment needed for the agency to maintain staffing levels and core programs. And here’s where we need your voice.
TAKE ACTION
Decisions being made now will shape the future of the National Forest System for years to come - and your voice matters. Members of Congress need to hear directly from the people who rely on these landscapes for recreation, community, and connection.
Take action today by speaking up for a sustainable future for the Forest Service. Use our action form to write your lawmakers asking them to exercise robust oversight over the agency’s reorganization, and reject funding cuts in the next federal budget. Consider personalizing your letter to share why sustainable management of our national forests is important to you. Our collective voice can help ensure that decision-makers prioritize a resilient, accessible future for the forests we love.
