The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Even the most MAGA hunter needs public lands…
By Chad Reich
Approximately 60 protestors gathered at the entrance to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park on Highway 50 near Montrose on Saturday, March 1. They were demonstrating against recent firings by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) who trimmed 3,400 jobs from the US Forest Service (USFS), 1,000 from the National Park Service (NPS), and 800 from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
Among the protestors was Western Colorado University graduate student Jessika McFarland, who studies extreme wildfires in the Environment and Sustainability program. The Contingency Plan that guides USFS policy and staffing states that firefighters are essential, meaning it’s likely they’ll survive any and all cuts to the agency.
“Making sure that our public lands are protected and resilient requires a lot of hands on deck that this administration is slowly but surely removing from the table,” McFarland says.
That means many pieces of the complex firefighting puzzle will be missing, such as those who thin out forest overgrowth or dead-and-down trees to reduce the likelihood, size, and intensity of wildfires. McFarland says firefighters alone are not enough, “because you’re also firing supportive employees…or employees that will step in to support wildland fire operations.”
She’s referring to “red-carded” firefighters who are USFS or other federal employees certified to battle blazes but who aren’t full time firefighters. Temporary or seasonal probationary employees that held their red cards — and were fired by DOGE — are no longer available when duty calls.
Derek Gaston is a skier and backpacker who lives in Chaffee County. He skipped an overnight ski trip to the Holy Cross Wilderness to protest. “I can give one Saturday back to public lands when I’ve spent probably cumulatively weeks and years of my life ski touring. One Saturday is not that big of a deal.”
Pulling both jobs and funding from agencies like the NPS could result in facilities falling into a state of disrepair or decay, and Gaston says that maintenance is preferred over repair.
“If we let these lands fall into that state, it becomes a restoration project and not a preservation project. That is so much harder. So, I’m worried about things like our pit toilets aren’t being cleaned. Then you walk into a pit toilet and you’re like, ‘Oh, national parks suck.’ Yeah, they suck because you took away their funding! Of course they’re going to suck. We need that funding to keep them good so they’re something people care about.”
The firings may not be over. DOGE requires agency heads to submit a list of nonessential employees — as defined in Contingency Plan documents — by March 13, one day before the potential government shutdown. The future of the names on that list is unknown. Remaining employees are under a press embargo, and those fired are hesitant to comment as they may want their jobs back if conditions change.
With fewer employees to steward and protect public lands, McFarland says DOGE is not, “…listening to the common person or listening to the working class, because that’s ultimately who’s suffering.” She also believes a small group of people who, “…don’t cherish public lands and don’t know how to start a campfire in the backcountry…” are making decisions that may have a fallout beyond shrinking the federal budget.
Gaston’s position is that public lands issues shouldn’t be as he believes — we all should value these places. “You probably don’t want your public lands developed. You probably don’t want a resort in Canyonlands. You want Canyonlands to stay Canyonlands. If you’re a hunter — and I don’t care if you’re the most MAGA hunter in the world — you still need public lands where elk can graze happily so you can have a healthy elk population.”
Furthermore, Gaston says, working to keep public lands healthy and functional isn’t just about recreation or wildlife. “It doesn’t matter if you’re left or you’re right, you need to drink clean water. You’re not going to have clean water if you can’t have public lands where that clean water can exist. It doesn’t come from nowhere; it comes from certain places that we’ve set aside and that we’ve already protected. If we stop protecting that, we’re going to have major problems downstream,” he says.
Aside from police reminding attendees to dance on the gravel shoulder instead of the pavement, the demonstration was incident-free.
As it wound down, one protestor taped an upside-down American flag over lettering on the park’s entrance sign as a signal of distress. Since employees are under a press embargo, neither the lands nor those who steward and protect them are able to speak for themselves.
