Q&A: A public lands advocate on Trump’s ‘reorganization’ of the Forest Service

DENVER — The U.S. The Department of Agriculture announced March 31 a massive “reorganization” of the U.S. Forest Service, the nation’s second-largest public land agency.  

Under the Trump Administration’s plan, the forest service will shutter more than 50 research facilities, centralize research at a single office in Fort Collins and move the agency’s headquarters from Washington D.C. to Salt Lake City, Utah.

"This is about building a Forest Service that is nimble, efficient, effective and closer to the forests and communities it serves," said Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz in a press release. 

Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, and Utah Governor Spencer Cox, a Republican, praised the decision. “Colorado is known for our outdoor spaces and nation-leading research institutions that are strengthening our forests and public lands, so it only makes sense that the U.S. Forest Service would include a location in our great state,” Polis said in a press release.

But many conservation advocates worried the decision will further hamper the agency’s ability to care for public lands. 

“Nobody is asking for this,” said Robert Bonnie, who oversaw the Forest Service during the Obama administration, to High Country News. 

Rocky Mountain PBS spoke to Josh Hicks, director of conservation campaigns for the Wilderness Society, a nonprofit that works to protect federal public lands in the United States, to understand how the reorganization might play out in Colorado. 

Hicks joined The Wilderness Society in 2007. His work focuses on federal policy and funding for the conservation of national forests.

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Rocky Mountain PBS: How does the Trump administration’s current reorganization of the Forest Service differ from past attempts to weaken the agency?

Josh Hicks: What we're seeing under this administration is unprecedented. We've never seen efforts on this scale in terms of dismantling the U.S. Forest Service. This all started back with what many within the Forest Service call the Valentine's Day Massacre when they first started to fire Forest Service employees in 2025. 

And then shortly after that, you saw DOGE deploying its harassment, intimidation tactics, really trying to force staff out the door. 

Those efforts worked. I think about a quarter of the staff have left the agency at this point, many of whom responded to wildland fires.

[The Forest Service lost 5,860 of its 35,550 employees during the first half of 2025 due to cuts by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and early retirement programs.]

Now you have this reorganization, which is moving the head of the agency to Utah — ground zero for challenging the constitutionality and even the very idea that public land should exist — dissolving these regional offices and moving to a skeletal state structure and eliminating many research stations.

Most recently, the president put out his budget, where he's proposing to eliminate entire programs within the Forest Service that are important for a number of reasons, including addressing the wildland fire crisis. 

So this really is unprecedented across the board. And this reorganization shouldn't be viewed in isolation, but should be viewed within the entire pattern that we're seeing, where they’re just blowing massive holes inside this agency that are really designed to break it.

RMPBS: I do want to focus on a couple of the specifics of the most recent policy. I know advocates of the plan have argued that moving the headquarters from D.C. to Salt Lake City will allow top brass to be closer to the people and resources that they manage. It doesn't sound like you see it that way. 

JH: The Trump administration in his first term, moved the Bureau of Land Management, another land management agency, to Grand Junction, Colorado.

When they did that, 87% of the staff in their D.C. headquarters left because they didn't feel like they could uproot their families, their lives and relocate to Grand Junction. They also moved another key arm of USDA to another state, and it was a similar result. Most of the staff left when they moved this research facility out of D.C. to Kansas City.

The lesson that they learned is this is an awfully effective way to further dismantle and push agency staff out the door.

These staff in the headquarters are very seasoned, experienced staff with a lot of institutional knowledge under their belt. 

The laws that govern and direct how our national forests are managed are made and implemented in D.C., and so it's really important that these agencies have a D.C. presence because this is where the policymakers, the lawmakers really spend their time.

RMPBS: Another part of the administration’s plan is to close 57 of its 77 research facilities. Can you give me an example of research that has emerged as a result of the agency’s investment in science?  

JH: These research facilities develop all kinds of science that informs how our national forests are managed, everything from best practices for ranching and grazing, to ecosystem management and water quality for fish and wildlife. 

They've done a lot of important, effective research about how fires spread and under what conditions do wildfires spread and how best to mitigate that. 

Eliminating a lot of these research facilities, many of which work on wildfire, when we're about to enter into a really serious wildfire season is something I can't even wrap my head around.

RMPBS: One thing that likely stuck out to a lot of people in Colorado is the move to centralize the research headquarters in Fort Collins. Could you tell me about what that might mean for Fort Collins? 

JH: You know, Cormac, I'm going to be honest with you on this one, I don't have a good answer. I'm still trying to run to ground on what the reorg, when it comes to these research stations, means.

RMPBS: Does the Trump administration’s attempt to weaken the forest service make it easier or harder for your organization to generate support for public lands? 

JH: We saw a massive groundswell of outrage when there was a proposal put forward to sell off our public lands to raise revenue for the government that was put forward by [Utah Republican] Senator Mike Lee as part of that reconciliation package. Clearly our public lands are immensely valued by the American people, and these efforts to dismantle the very agencies that are responsible for stewarding our public lands are concerning. 

But I don't know that people have really made the connection that dismantling these agencies and undermining their ability to steward the lands is a step towards eventually selling them off. 

And for people who don't see the connection, that's what we're very worried about.

RMPBS: Who are the winners here? Who's benefiting from the reorganization?

JH: This administration continues to try to blow holes and destabilize these public land agencies, and they're doing a good job at it. And eventually, if they keep at it, they will break these agencies. 

And when they break these agencies and that frustration really begins to foment within the public, the alternatives that are going to be put on the table will be, well, who else can manage these agencies? Because the Forest Service and the other public land agencies aren't doing a very good job.

So when you ask who the winners are, I don't know that we have any winners yet other than many of the people who desire to seek that handing over [of] our public lands. This is trending towards that direction. And you have mining companies, oil and gas companies eager in the wings, to step in should our public lands end up getting disposed of down the line.