Amidst the barrage of direct attacks that the Trump administration and their allies have been waging on public lands and the environment, you’d be forgiven for missing a potentially seismic shift in the Forest Service.

On March 31st of this year (2026), the US Department of Agriculture, the agency which the Forest Service is a part of, quietly announced a dramatic restructuring of the agency which manages almost 200 million acres of public land.

Responses have ranged from ‘Trump is destroying the Forest Service and we need to save it’, to ‘this isn’t that big a deal’, to ‘RIP and good riddance, Forest Service’!

So to understand what is actually happening with this so-called “reorganization” and the real implications it could have for public lands, I’m joined by Kevin Hood, Executive Director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics.

My email is [email protected], reach out anytime and let me know what you think of the show!

Show Notes:

• FSEEE: https://nationalforestadvocates.org/
• USDA Press Release: https://www.fs.usda.gov/about-agency/newsroom/releases/usda-prioritizing-common-sense-forest-management-moves-forest
• https://www.andykerr.net/public-lands-blog/the-death-and-rebirth-of-the-forest-service
• More concerned perspective: https://morethanjustparks.substack.com/p/breaking-trump-administration-orders
• Less concerned perspective: https://wessiler.substack.com/p/the-sky-is-not-falling-on-the-forest

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