Trump’s federal cuts place California’s public lands, including Yosemite, in peril | Opinion
After spending 15 “seasons” as a temporary appointee of the Sequoia National Forest before finally securing a permanent position, Ernest Wingate’s years of dedication unraveled in one email.
An archeologist assigned to the Hume Lake Ranger District east of Fresno, Wingate is among thousands of US Forest Service and National Park Service employees who abruptly lost their jobs as pawns in the Trump administration’s reckless, shortsighted purge of federal workers.
On Feb. 13, the day he received his termination notice, Wingate was less than two weeks away from completing his 12-month probationary period, which likely would’ve spared him from getting axed.
“I took a lot of pride in my job and felt invested in the land – that’s why I kept working for the (Forest Service) all these years instead of going to the private sector,” Wingate said. “And just to get everything ripped out from under me with just 12 days left in my probation, it’s like a slap in the face.”
The pain Wingate and thousands of his ex-colleagues are experiencing will soon trickle down to, and be inflicted upon, our already underfunded public lands.
In addition to firing 3,400 Forest Service employees, about 10% of the agency’s workforce, the Trump administration has frozen funds for projects approved under President Biden totaling more than $2 billion designed to clear overgrown national forests of wildfire-accelerating vegetation.
Remember when President Trump made the laughable statement that California should “rake” its forests? (Even though 58% of the state’s forestlands are federally owned and managed.)
Now forest managers can barely buy rakes.
“The forests were already in crisis,” a California wildfire prevention manager told the New York Times. “This is pulling the rug out from that entire endeavor.”
Potential consequences for Yosemite
The federal purge will also have immense consequences for national parks – and not just for the 1,000 National Park Service employees who lost their jobs and thousands more seasonal workers whose job offers were rescinded last month.
The following day, Yosemite National Park announced that reservation bookings at five popular campgrounds that sell out almost instantly (Upper Pines, Lower Pines, North Pines, Wawona, and Hodgdon Meadow) were postponed indefinitely, affecting reservations from June 15 to July 14 during the start of summer.
Yosemite officials did not provide a reason for the delay. Meanwhile, the park’s entrance reservation system, implemented to reduce overcrowding between April and October, is on hold until “after Feb. 26.”
“We recognize the importance of providing clarity on that system as soon as possible to accommodate peak summer season travel planning,” reads a message on the park’s website.
Yosemite, which welcomed nearly 4 million visitors in 2023, relies on short-term employees to keep things operating smoothly during peak tourist season. Between 350 to 400 seasonal staff help manage campgrounds and day-use facilities, man visitors centers and collect fees at entrance stations.
Even though Trump backtracked Thursday on seasonal workers, it still may be too late for this spring and summer. Because members of that temporary workforce (who don’t receive housing or health insurance) typically can’t afford to sit around for weeks and months waiting to see if they’ll be working in Yosemite.
“From my years at Yosemite, I believe the park will have to stop specific functions (like no Half Dome cables can be installed) and close park areas,” former park superintendent Don Neubacher told SF Gate via email. “There is no way they can accommodate current visitation levels without additional staff support during the peak season.”
An even larger fear is a repeat of the partial government shutdown during Trump’s first term in 2018, when in the absence of park employees visitors trashed scenic viewpoints, defecated outside locked rest rooms and trampled sensitive ecological areas with their vehicles and dogs.
Justifying the mass layoffs
Unlike those of a Yosemite ranger, Wingate’s duties as a Sequoia National Forest archeologist did not involve the public. He was primarily responsible for the identification and preservation of cultural resources, which can range from ancient Native American bedrock mortar sites, petroglyphs and locations sacred to local tribes to the remains of a 19th century cabin or logging mill.
In recent years, as blazes repeatedly swept through the forest, Wingate was assigned to reforestation projects following the 2015 Rough Fire as well as the subsequent Castle and Windy fires in 2020 and 2021, respectively, that devastated giant sequoia groves in the southern Sierra Nevadas.
“When the fire goes through those areas it exposes things you couldn’t see before due to vegetation,” he said.
Wingate is upset over losing his job but particularly galled that the termination notice he and thousands of other terminated federal employees received indicated they were being fired “based on their performance.” The 49-year-old said he always received positive job reviews.
“Probationary people are the easiest to let go, that’s why they did it,” Wingate said. “Are they saying everyone they laid off has poor performance? That’s a complete crock. But they put that language in there to try and justify what they were doing.”
Wingate believes federal employees such as himself are being unfairly vilified in the name of government efficiency. When in fact the agencies responsible for protecting and preserving national forests and national parks are already severely underfunded.
“I understand there’s a lot of waste in government,” he said. “But it’s not the boots on the ground, man.”
Fewer boots on the ground will only result in less care and more destruction of our public lands.
Perhaps that’s the grand design.
This story was originally published February 20, 2025 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Trump’s federal cuts place California’s public lands, including Yosemite, in peril | Opinion."
