1. United States
2. Mass.
3. Letter

The Trump administration is attempting to dismantle the U.S. Forest Service. The administration just announced a sweeping restructuring and it’s as bad as it sounds. Headquarters is leaving Washington D.C. for Salt Lake City. All nine regional offices are closing. More than 50 research facilities across 31 states are being eliminated. The regional system the agency has used since its founding in 1907 is gone. In their place 15 political “state directors,” embedded with the same state officials and industry groups that have long pushed for more logging and fewer protections mirroring the Bureau of Land Management model that public lands advocates have fought for decades. That puts 193 million acres (the largest public land system in the nation, bigger than Texas) under a structure designed for political access, not scientific stewardship. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz framed it as getting “closer to the forests.” What it actually does is gut the career scientists and independent oversight that stood between those forests and the people who want to exploit them. Scientists won’t relocate en masse. Long-term studies, datasets, and research partnerships built over decades will collapse. Once that expertise walks out the door, it doesn’t come back. The Forest Service was built by Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot to keep professional, science-based management out of the hands of industry. That vision is being systematically dismantled not with a bang, but with a press release. 193 million acres. Gone from federal protection in all but name. Please stop this !