U.S. Forest Service layoffs impacting trails in Arizona
TUCSON, Ariz. (CNN, KYMA/KECY) - According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Trump administration has continued cutting federal jobs, including thousands of U.S. Forest Service workers across the country, and these layoffs could impact Arizona.
Walking on trails through Arizona could begin to look a little different.
The Arizona Trail Association says the recent firings of U.S. Forest Service employees could affect things as little as access to the bathroom, and as big as access to forests as a whole.
"Without those people helping to safeguard these places and care for them, all of us are going to suffer," said Matt Nelson, Executive Director of the Arizona Trail Association.
Nelson works closely with the Forest Service to protect and maintain areas like Mount Lemmon and the Santa Rita Mountains.
"We can't do anything without them, without their approval, if those people aren't there to help enforce those or approve those, we can't get any work done for trail maintenance, new trail construction and helping people access public lands," Nelson explained.
USDA cut 2,000 jobs.
"So many of these people that are working for public lands, they do it because they love it," Nelson expressed.
Nelson says the layoffs affected 10% of the Forest Service workforce in Arizona.
It's part of an effort by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to trim the federal workforce and eliminate wasteful spending, a motion businessman Elon Musk symbolized in the form of a chainsaw at last Thursday's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
"This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy," Musk said during the conference.
A USDA spokesperson issued a statement saying, "We have a solemn responsibility to be good stewards of the American people's hard-earned taxpayer dollars and to ensure that every dollar spent goes to serve the people, not the bureaucracy."
They say they're committed to preserving essential safety positions and all of the jobs cut were probationary, but Nelson says, "Some of these people have been working for the agency for 30 years or longer, are career professionals that switched a job. They were transferring from US Forest Service to the Bureau of Land Management."
Now, Nelson says he plans to take his concerns to Washington, D.C., saying he wants "to talk to all elected members of the congressional delegation in Arizona to remind them how important public lands are."
