Employees who maintained America's most wild places say they are concerned for public safety and for wildlife.

Summary

The Trump administration’s recent mass layoffs of national park and forest staff have sparked outrage as services deteriorate and safety concerns grow.

Around 1,000 National Park Service employees (5%) and 3,400 Forest Service workers (10%) were terminated on February 14, causing long entrance lines, trail closures, and reduced visitor services.

Former employees like wilderness ranger Kate White worry about visitor safety and ecological damage at popular destinations.

Conservation work for endangered species has halted, and wildfire response capabilities are threatened. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum defended the cuts as deficit reduction, while critics call for policy reversal.

  • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
    10·
    2 days ago

    Both parties are the same, yet only one of them just fired a bunch of important staff. Exactly the same.

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
      8·
      2 days ago

      Biden protected 9 Million Acres of land and water, and Trump intentionally laid off national park defenders at the start of his first term to the point that the parks saw unprecedented destruction and that conservationists and the NPCA said it would take hundreds of years to undo the damage, and Trump cleared swaths of protected land for his stupid border wall with high explosives, but they’re exactly the same.