What Trump firing federal land workers means for monitoring and biodiversity

A target for efficiency and savings, a number of federal land managers and conservation workers have been laid off - but what consequences will this have for environmental health? Jed Thomas

The sweeping cuts to the federal public lands workforce under the Trump administration pose an existential threat to biodiversity, environmental health, and the future of conservation in the United States

With the appointment of fossil fuel industry advocate Kathleen Sgamma to lead the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), a rollback of vital environmental protections is inevitable.

These developments signal not just a shift in policy but a seismic dismantling of federal oversight on public lands, with dire consequences for ecosystems, endangered species, and climate resilience.

Mass lay-offs means defunding conservation

Recent reports reveal a mass firing of U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and BLM employees, with as much as 40% of some workforce sectors being terminated due to ‘poor performance’.

These purges, orchestrated under the guise of efficiency by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), leave national forests, parks, and wildlife refuges critically understaffed.

Trails go unmaintained, fire mitigation efforts are abandoned, and critical environmental monitoring programs are left in disarray.

Without trained personnel to enforce conservation laws and conduct scientific monitoring, illegal logging, poaching, and pollution are likely to surge.

Firefighters warn that fewer eyes on the ground will mean undetected wildfires burn longer, threatening not just habitats but communities. Meanwhile, invasive species are poised to spread unchecked, undermining delicate ecosystems and pushing native species toward extinction.

Endangered species at risk

The cuts come as the Trump administration aggressively seeks to weaken the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

USFS and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) biologists are being forced out at a time when habitat loss and climate change are driving mass extinctions.

Species in need of federal protections will face delayed or abandoned recovery plans, while those currently protected may see their critical habitats stripped away for development and extractive industries.

The consequences will be particularly devastating in regions like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante, where conservation efforts have long clashed with fossil fuel interests.

By weakening ESA enforcement, the administration is accelerating habitat destruction in favor of short-term economic gains for oil and gas companies.

Selling off public lands

Sgamma’s nomination to lead the BLM—a position responsible for 245 million acres of federal land—aligns with the Trump administration’s broader push to privatize public lands.

A secretive national monument review is already underway, aimed at shrinking or eliminating protections for iconic sites like Colorado’s Camp Hale and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

These moves follow the playbook of Project 2025, which explicitly calls for reducing national monuments, repealing the Antiquities Act, and expanding extractive industries on protected lands.

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Meanwhile, Trump’s proposed sovereign wealth fund, which would be financed in part by selling off federal lands, threatens to permanently strip Americans of their shared natural heritage.

The administration has already signaled that vast tracts of BLM and national forest land could be auctioned off to developers, loggers, and fossil fuel conglomerates.

Exacerbating climate and water crises

Federal land agencies play a crucial role in climate mitigation, from carbon sequestration in national forests to watershed protection in wetlands and river basins.

The Trump administration’s drive to expand oil drilling and mining on public lands, coupled with the workforce cuts, undermines these critical functions.

Recent moves to pump water from California’s San Joaquin Delta and greenlight extraction projects near protected areas highlight the administration’s disregard for ecological balance.

The weakening of clean water regulations, combined with fewer environmental inspectors, means that industrial pollution will likely go unchecked, impacting drinking water supplies and aquatic ecosystems.

Public outrage and legal challenges

The response to these attacks on public lands has been swift. Conservation groups, Indigenous nations, and local communities are mobilizing legal challenges to stop the rollbacks.

Monuments For All and The Mountain Pact are rallying public support to protect sites threatened by Trump’s energy agenda.

Meanwhile, lawsuits challenging the legality of mass firings and the dismantling of conservation programs are gaining traction in courts across the country.

However, with a conservative Supreme Court and a Republican-controlled Congress, the fate of many public lands protections remains uncertain.

The administration’s strategy—removing career scientists, cutting funding, and gutting environmental laws—aims to ensure that these rollbacks become difficult, if not impossible, to reverse in the future.

The Trump administration’s assault on public lands and environmental oversight is unprecedented, but it is not unstoppable. The future of America’s landscapes, wildlife, and climate resilience depends on the actions taken now to defend them.