Statement by: Paula Hood, M.S.
Co-Director of Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project
I have been a vocal critic of the Forest Service for over 20 years. Forest Service employees and other federal workers do not deserve how the Trump administration is treating them.
As only long-time rivals can know their adversaries, I have a decades-long familiarity with the Forest Service. My work as co-director of Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project, an environmental nonprofit that watchdogs federal public lands, requires me to have in-depth knowledge of how the Forest Service operates and of the rules and regulations that govern National Forests. As a result, I’m more familiar with the inner workings of federal agencies than your average civilian.
The focus of my life’s calling for over two decades has been to fight as hard as I can to protect forest ecosystems on federal public lands in Oregon. I’ve dedicated a large part of my life to field survey work, collecting data on streams and forests, documenting on-the-ground conditions, and trying to tell the story of some of the last-best wild places in Oregon and the threats they face.
Over the years, I’ve spent countless hours critically investigating the agency’s protocols and work. I’ve reviewed more environmental review documents than I care to think about. I’ve read thousands of Forest Service emails as part of the agency’s responses to my Freedom of Information Act requests. And I’ve even sat in on some planning and budgeting meetings for federally funded stewardship monitoring.
It’s an understatement to say that I am critical of the Forest Service’s timber sale program on National Forests.
Nevertheless, I fully recognize that the vast majority of Forest Service and other federal employees are hard workers who are genuinely trying to do their best every day. Most federal employees I’ve interacted with have a strong sense of civic duty, and a deep commitment to safeguarding human health, local economies, and the environment.
In other words, Forest Service and other federal employees are not lazing about in their chairs, wasting time and racking up exorbitant credit card purchases or committing fraud, as Elon Musk would have us believe.
Federal workers certainly do not deserve the disrespect, disregard for their lives and families, and casual cruelty being visited upon them by the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s band of tech bros. It is unacceptable for the federal workforce to face arbitrary layoffs, threats of reduction in workforce, reduced retirement payments, attacks on their collective bargaining power, Orwellian demands to snitch on their coworkers for suspected DEI activity, the administration using AI to spy on their emails for evidence of anti-Trump sentiment, and aggressive and likely illegal micromanagement of their work by the richest man in the world.
While Musk and the Trump administration make dubious claims to be “reducing waste and fraud”, it’s clear that actions such as the blanket lay-offs of whole classes of employees (such as probationary employees, most of which are probationary simply by way of being in their positions less than a year) are arbitrary and have nothing to do with worker performance, or with the importance of these jobs for fulfilling critical roles such as protecting public safety. The point of the Trump administration’s policies is division and destabilization— and ultimately to cripple and dismantle the agencies tasked with ensuring laws and regulations are upheld while also carrying out the work assigned to them by Congress.
Federal agencies are carrying out the daily operation of our democracy. The Trump administration is undermining these agencies and our democracy, with the ultimate goal of private control and profits for oligarchs. The Trump administration and republicans have made it clear that they intend to transfer control of or outright sell federal public lands and the resources in them, which will ultimately benefit private companies and Trump’s oligarch friends.
Trump and his cronies are coming after your public lands, and they are out to strip forests for timber and the country’s majestic landscapes for oil and minerals. Never mind the cost to the public’s drinking water, to wildlife and biodiversity, and the climate. Never mind the devastation to the incredible wild places that belong to all of us, and to the myriad of species that call these ecosystems home. Never mind the tragic cost to all Americans, our kids, and future generations.
I’m not going to lie— I am often infuriated by the Forest Service. More to the point, I’m livid about the ongoing influence of the timber industry lobby on Congress. My real beef, ultimately, is that agencies are under pressure from Congress to meet timber targets and ‘get the cut out’. The Forest Service’s work is primarily focused on getting timber sales over the finish line and the trees auctioned off, and working to meeting industry’s insatiable demand for more logging on public lands in Oregon– because Congress and politics tell them to.
And make no mistake, heavy industrial-style logging is already widespread on federal public lands across the region, including eastern Oregon, and has been for decades. It’s an open secret that this includes clearcuts, cutting down mature and old trees, and pervasive loss of wildlife habitat and degradation of streams and water quality. Documents recently obtained by WildEarth Guardians show that the Forest Service is planning to severely limit public transparency and participation, with the clearly stated goal of further increasing timber output.
I’d like to take a moment to dispel a myth out there. Logging is usually sold to the public as a solution to the wildfire crisis facing many communities. However, logging in the backcountry will not make communities safer. Home hardening, working adjacent to communities, and emergency preparedness are far more effective strategies for keeping homes and communities safe. (You can read more here, here, here, and here). Many of the federal programs that are crucial to protecting communities from wildfire have been cut or are under threat of cuts by the Trump administration. (You can read more here, here, and here). It’s clear that Trump and his cronies are not actually interested in public safety. They simply want to liquidate forests for their own profit.
It’s also important to note that protecting forests from logging does not increase their fire risk. In fact, heavily logged forests are more likely to burn more intensely. Logging can increase fire risk by removing the largest and most fire-resistant trees, and by increasing winds and solar radiation, thereby drying out forests and making them hotter. (You can read more here). In addition, most homes are burned by large, fast-moving fires— fires which are primarily driven by climate, not by “fuels” in forests. Indeed, the primary threat to homes in the western US is from grassfires, not forest fires. Logging also increases carbon emissions compared to unlogged forests and wildfires, ultimately making climate change and wildfires worse. Furthermore, the vast majority of fire ignitions that cross jurisdictional boundaries start on private lands, not public lands— more evidence that the industrial logging that is even more pervasive on private lands does not benefit community safety.
So, while I disagree vehemently with the timber sale program being carried out by the Forest Service, the federal employees tasked with this work are doing their best to follow congressional directives (i.e., fulfill timber targets) while simultaneously trying to uphold environmental protections — at least to the limited extent that the timber extraction focus mandated by Congress allows. The Trump administration’s demonization and mass firings of federal employees are an attack on democracy, public participation and transparency, the middle class, and unions— with the endgame of large-scale theft of public resources to enrich themselves and their oligarch friends.
It is up to all of us to stop them. Now is the time to call and email representatives, attend town halls and public meetings, go to rallies, talk to friends and family, and make all the noise we can to keep public lands in public hands.