National Park and Forest Service Staffing Levels Have Been Dramatically Reduced

“It’s a dire situation,” says one national parks advocate. “These spaces shouldn’t be taken for granted, and they are at risk.”

America’s 34th annual National Parks Week will feature dramatically scaled back staffing and services at national parks and forests following weeks of slashing by the Trump Administration. 

Friday, the day before parks week begins, was the Trump administration’s deadline for federal employees to voluntarily resign in exchange for paid leave—an offer that was overturned and then reinstated by courts. Last week, a court also reinstated the administration’s order to fire all probationary employees. 

“I just concluded that this was no way to work,” said Gregg Bafundo, a wilderness ranger for the U.S. Forest Service who took the resignation offer after facing months of flip-flopping uncertainty about his employment. “It was the greatest job I ever had,” he said.

The Forest Service is part of the Department of Agriculture, while the National Parks Service is part of the Interior Department. 

Bafundo, a former U.S. Marine and wildland firefighter, said about 5,000 other Forest Service employees took the resignation offer. 

“The scariest part of it all is not the fact that a bathroom is going to go uncleaned,” Bafundo said in a press conference Friday. “These firings are going to lead directly to the loss of lives.”

The National Parks Service has seen a 13 percent reduction in staffing over the past two months under the Trump Administration, according to Emily Thompson, executive director of the Coalition to Protect National Parks. 

She said the cuts will lead to more park spaces closed or unattended by staff, youth programs terminated, trails shut down for lack of maintenance and decreasing standards of cleanliness at park facilities. The staffing reduction will also lead to losses of institutional knowledge in management as well as fewer young leaders interested in joining the service. 

“It’s a dire situation,” Thompson said. “These spaces shouldn’t be taken for granted, and they are at risk.”

U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, a Democrat from New Mexico, said staffing has declined by 20 percent at Carlsbad Caverns National Park, one of the so-called “crown jewels” of the National Park Service. 

“They can no longer provide regular visitation hours. They cannot provide after school visitation programs for young people,” he said. “This is no way to manage America’s public lands.”

He said the staff reductions at national parks and forests across New Mexico will hurt the economies of small towns that depend on the tourism economy anchored in public lands. 

Vasquez has introduced a bill in Congress called the Public Lands in Public Hands Act that would ban the sale or transfer of public lands managed by the Department of Interior or U.S. Forest Service. 

Many advocates for public lands worry that cuts at the Department of Interior and Forest Service are a prelude for plans to sell off large chunks of the federal government’s land holdings. The sale of public lands was part of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 agenda, which is generally seen as a blueprint for the Trump Administration. 

Bafundo, the former Marine and ranger, said he believed the Administration intended to sow chaos by firing staff.  

“They’ll use it as a reason to sell off public lands, to say that corporations and private businesses can do it better,” he said. “The billionaire class literally wants it all.”

National Parks Week, which begins on Saturday, April 19, with free admission to all national parks, was first proclaimed in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush “to focus attention on the inestimable value of our national parks and on the need for their preservation.”

Cover photo:  A ranger hikes a trail at Joshua Tree National Park in California. Credit: National Park Service