Local groups unite over concern for forests’ future

Amid ongoing budget and staffing shortages in the U.S. Forest Service, Roaring Fork Valley governments and nonprofits are stepping up to protect public lands in the short term, while also weighing how to ensure that the public understands the causes and consequences of the push to downsize the federal government. 

Kevin Warner, district ranger of the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District of the White River National Forest, laid out the stark realities of federal funding cuts and a drastic reduction in staffing levels in presentations to the Pitkin Board of County Commissioners and at a newly formed forum of area environmental and stewardship organizations earlier this month.

Warner acknowledged that the staffing shortages — about 30% of White River National Forest staff employed at this time last year will have left the agency by the end of this month — and a low budget mean that the agency will be doing less work on the trails. People will see more trash, more downed trees and fewer available toilets, which are also dirtier. 

Work that is mostly invisible to the general public will be hard-hit as well, including decades-long research into air and water quality, wildlife and fire mitigation, and coordination for wildfire responses and projects on the forest. 

The cuts and losses are wide-ranging across the agency, driven by layoffs, resignations and early retirements through the deferred resignation program, which provides pay and benefits through September. Forest Service functions across the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District and the wider White River National Forest have been deeply affected by the reductions, which were driven by the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce.

In response to these circumstances, five local nonprofits — Aspen Center for Environmental Studies, Independence Pass Foundation, Roaring Fork Conservancy, Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers and Wilderness Workshop — formed the Public Lands and Water Forum. Those groups are working with other nonprofits and local governments to address how to maintain key Forest Service functions, including stewardship of public lands, data collection, education and monitoring of environmental conditions. 

The forum is a re-imagining of the Future Forest Roundtable, a White River National Forest initiative to share information and build partnerships that was started in 2012 by former forest supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams, who recently retired through the deferred resignation program. Fitzwilliams spent 35 years working for the Forest Service and had been the White River National Forest supervisor since 2009.

Elected officials and staff from local governments, leaders in environmental nonprofits, firefighters, researchers and retired U.S. Forest Service employees, including Fitzwilliams, met for the first time on May 7 in Carbondale. In addition to voicing their desire to help steward and protect public lands, they made clear that they were unable and unwilling to bail out the federal government for the long term.

“There’s gotta be some hurt here or people aren’t going to change,” said Fitzwilliams, who presented at the forum. “If we fill all the gaps — or you all — they’re going to say, ‘See, we didn’t need all those feds anyway.’

“There have to be strategic fails.”

Volunteers step up

Visitors to the White River might first notice the impacts on trails and in local wilderness areas.

Warner updated the 45 attendees in person and online at the Public Lands and Water Forum meeting on what is shaping up to be a challenging summer season — and beyond — with little funding and drastically reduced staffing numbers.

Last year, there were six people on the wilderness crew in the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District, which includes 316,000 acres of protected wilderness across five separate wilderness areas. This year, there will be two. 

Wilderness areas are “designated for preservation and protection in their natural condition” by the Wilderness Act of 1964. To try to keep these areas pristine, the wilderness crew typically makes contact with 3,400 day visitors and 2,000 overnight visitors annually; clears 1,000 trees that have fallen across the trails; picks up at least 100 to 200 pounds of trash; and buries about 70 piles of human feces left on the landscape. 

“So, a bunch of that will be left on the landscape, because we just can’t get to it,” Warner said. 

It will be much of the same challenge on other trails; the trails program, which had six employees last summer, is down to three people attempting to care for about 500 miles of trails in the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District. 

At a minimum, that means significantly more downed trees, trash, abandoned campfires and piles of human feces left in the forest. But there is also a less measurable effect in the reduced presence of officials on the forest. 

Warner said the two remaining staff members in the trails program “are going to be doing way more coordinating and working with others than they will actually be doing trail work themselves.” 

White River employees will be out in the field with volunteer groups, but they will also be spending more time planning and coordinating the projects for those groups to accomplish. Warner said the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District alone has turned away about 400 hours of volunteer time because “we just didn’t have the capacity to actually be there” for oversight.  

Warner thanked local organizations for stepping up to support Forest Service efforts that the agency itself is no longer funding, such as cleaning and stocking toilets on Independence Pass, and acknowledged that can take a toll on those groups. 

“That’s an impact. It’s taking resources away from those organizations that are helping us,” Warner said. “It’s taking away resources that they could be putting toward other good things.” 

The lack of a physical presence in the forest is a major concern for Karin Teague, executive director of the Independence Pass Foundation, a nonprofit that works to protect the ecological, historical and aesthetic integrity of the Independence Pass corridor, which is home to three wilderness areas. 

Teague, who helped initiate the forum, spends a lot of time in the forests surrounding Highway 82 as it crosses the Continental Divide in the summer seasons, picking up trash, planting trees and studying ecology. She notes that the presence of an official in a uniform can be a powerful incentive for visitors to follow the rules. 

“For example, if this summer we end up having drought conditions and wildfire restrictions get put in place, it’s really important, it’s critical to have boots on the ground, making sure that people are obeying fire restrictions, that they’re putting out campfires completely,” Teague said. 

Teague said she will continue to check campfires herself, pick up trash and generally keep an eye on things along Independence Pass. The Independence Pass Foundation, along with the Aspen Chamber Resort Association and the Aspen Historical Society, are picking up the Forest Service’s tab in cleaning and stocking toilets along Independence Pass five days a week for this summer season. Volunteers with the Forest Conservancy and Independence Pass Foundation will be pitching in to stock supplies on the remaining two days a week, and Pitkin County is contributing to pumping waste from the toilets. 

Although these groups are committed to funding for this season, Teague is clear that this is not a sustainable model for funding federal lands. 

“We’ve decided that if it is an issue where the real ecological integrity of the pass is going to be compromised, a real environmental or safety issue, we’re going to try to fill the gaps,” Teague said at the Public Lands and Water Forum. “If it’s a lesser issue, like trails that can’t be cleared, then that’s the way it is, and again, there are real consequences to this administration’s actions.”

Plus, there are areas that Teague and her volunteers cannot address, such as enforcement of rules. 

“I’m very worried about forest protection, boots on the ground checking for illegal campfires, illegal camping, people driving across the tundra,” Teague said at the Public Lands and Water Forum. “These are big concerns to us, and these are not things that volunteers can respond to adequately.”

Pitkin County officials have also recognized the need for uniformed officers and created positions for two full-time seasonal backcountry community response officers as a direct result of Forest Service staff shortages. Warner said he expects that Forest Service staff will spend more time in high-use, remote areas such as Lincoln Creek and Montezuma Basin, while the new Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office staff will focus on more developed sites such as the Grottos. 

Pitkin County has posted the community response officer jobs with an annual salary equivalent to $58,300 to $102,000, though the work is planned to be seasonal from June 1-Nov. 30. Pitkin County undersheriff Alex Burchetta said the intent is to have a visible presence in the backcountry, including for emergencies. 

“We want to make sure that there’s an access point back to the 911 system,” Burchetta said. Each year, he said, some search and rescue calls come through Forest Service rangers or forest protection officers. The community response officers can help to fill that gap while keeping an eye out for other safety issues, like campfires that aren’t fully extinguished.

Those officers will also educate users on backcountry etiquette and wildlife safety and will be authorized to write citations to enforce Pitkin County codes. They cannot enforce federal rules and regulations or arrest or detain people. 

Those positions within the sheriff’s office are also intended to be a short-term fix as the county pressures the federal government to reinstate appropriate funding and staff levels. 

In addition to the financial strain on local nonprofits and governments, Teague emphasized the importance of funding federal land management agencies at a sustainable level. 

“We care deeply about the ecological integrity of that place, and the Forest Service, our public lands managers, are absolutely critical to making sure that integrity is preserved,” she said. “They’re the land managers. They’re the ones tasked with taking care of the three wilderness areas that comprise Independence Pass, and not having their deep historical knowledge and leadership on all of these things is a huge loss for us.”

Stewardship of federal lands is one area in which individuals and groups who are concerned about forest health can lend a helping hand. Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers has already planned an estimated 80 field days in the forest, said Becca Schild, executive director of Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers. The group also employs a professional crew for backcountry trails. 

But Schild said scaling up operations on the White River National Forest even more could be a challenge, depending on the area of need. 

“We certainly don’t want to say volunteers are going to be cleaning bathrooms,” Schild said. Some of the work needed across the White River National Forest is “maybe not appropriate for volunteers, either because it’s not suitable for volunteers or the quality of work needs to be at a higher level than volunteers can reliably do.”

Cuts threaten crucial work

The U.S. Forest Service has long supported scientific research and data-based decision-making, but budget cuts and staff shortages threaten long-standing work to understand and monitor environmental health. 

A month ago, the White River National Forest had two wildlife biologists. Warner said by the end of this month, there will be none.

Wildlife biologist Phil Nyland, who is retiring under the deferred resignation program, has spearheaded much of the work to reduce wildfire fuels and improve wildlife habitat in the White River National Forest.

“Phil has been awesome. He has been an incredible advocate for wildlife,” said Gary Tennenbaum, director of Pitkin County Open Space and Trails. “He’s the reason why we get these projects done, these wildfire mitigation and wildlife improvement projects, and he will be sorely missed by us and by the whole community.” 

Any projects to reduce wildfire hazards and improve habitat on federal lands need to be studied by a wildlife biologist. Tennenbaum said if the public wants those projects to continue, “We’re just going to have to step up and make that happen.” 

But it’s not clear that the county could make it happen. Any projects that require analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act could face major hurdles and delays. There was a three-person team working on NEPA in the White River National Forest; one person left the agency and another was recently transferred to manage the wildly popular Maroon Bells Scenic Area. So, there is now one person overseeing all NEPA analysis across 2.3 million acres of forest. 

“That’s a challenge,” Warner said. 

Warner had been pushing for a districtwide wildland fuels-mitigation project that would have allowed for faster approval of that work.

“We don’t have the support. I don’t have someone to coordinate that work right now,” Warner said. “It’s not the place I want to be. I want to be able to respond to those community asks … in a timely manner.” 

Pitkin County Open Space and Trails rangers will also step up to monitor some of the seasonal trail closures meant to protect elk and deer on federal lands.

Meanwhile, decades of work to understand air quality are at risk because the Forest Service no longer has the funds to continue the program. 

Wilderness Workshop, a Carbondale-based public lands advocacy organization, provides the staff and collects samples for the program, which will probably run out of funding by the end of the year. 

Forest Service scientists have also been collecting water quality data through studying macroinvertebrates in local rivers and streams; there is no longer enough money to send off samples to be processed. 

“Potentially, we’re looking at a gap in those data sets that really are an indicator of stream health,” Warner said. 

There are other major concerns about water quality information and monitoring in the White River National Forest. Monitoring and understanding contamination in Lincoln Creek is a priority for local groups, as is preventing the invasive and highly destructive zebra mussels and quagga mussels from establishing in local reservoirs and streams. 

Rick Lofaro, executive director of Roaring Fork Conservancy, and Adam McCurdy, forest and climate director for the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies, called on attendees at the forum to provide ideas for ways to continue gathering data and monitoring issues that arise on the White River National Forest. 

“We know there are going to be impacts,” McCurdy said. “What can we do as a community, as professionals, as recreators to make it really easy for ourselves to document what those are in one place, to share them and to build a database of information for education, and for stewardship and outreach?” 

‘Get out of the echo chamber’

Even as local governments and nonprofits work to protect federal lands from ecological damage and other emergent threats, many are clear that their larger aim is to change the minds of politicians who have supported budget and staffing reductions that put the forest at risk. 

“We want the response to be both stewardship but also education and advocacy so we can use our collective voice to fix this and push back,” said Will Roush, executive director of Wilderness Workshop.

Fitzwilliams warned that this summer’s challenges come on top of many years of scarce funding and are likely to continue, pointing to President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for 2026, which would cut U.S. Forest Service budgets by nearly $1.4 billion.

“This is the tip of the iceberg,” Fitzwilliams said. “In my opinion, this is a complete dismantling.” 

In this context, all forest users, from hikers to ranchers, can expect changes, Fitzwilliams said, and the Public Lands and Water Forum ought to work to include a wider range of those who depend on federal lands. 

“We’ve got to figure out a way to get out of the echo chamber here,” Fitzwilliams said. “We’ve got to get other constituents to speak about the importance of public lands and their economics. I’d love to see a few ranchers and outfitters in this room, who depend on national forests to make a living.”

Roush and others with Wilderness Workshop encourage all concerned citizens to contact members of Congress, participate in protests and reach out to their local elected representatives.

“There’s only so much that great local volunteerism and extra resources can and should do,” Roush said. “The thing that worries me the most is the general devaluing of public lands and their management and stewardship.”

There is concern that if the federal government abdicates its responsibility to manage public lands, private entities or states would be called upon to step in and take over. 

“That’s a recipe for disaster, frankly,” Roush said.

Attendees at the Public Lands and Water Forum intend to continue to discuss how to best protect public lands and advocate for the federal government to restore funding and staffing levels. 

“This valley can have a voice,” said Fitzwilliams. “That’s the thing I refuse to give up — if you give up your voice, you’ve given up your role in a functioning democracy.”