What Forest Service Cuts Mean for Cities

In an opinion piece in Greater Greater Washington, Lorenzo Cinalli and Kesha Braunskill, two former U.S. Forest Service employees, argue that the mass firing of USFS workers impacts all Americans, including those in urban areas. “Forest Service staffers work on innovative and applied research such as developing climate adaptation actions for use in local decision-making, like Climate Ready DC.”

The deep cuts to the Forest Service aren’t just a blow to the people who lost their paychecks—they’re a blow to the environmental resilience, economic stability, and overall quality of life of DC and urban communities across the country.

According to the authors, the Forest Service works on everything from fire prevention to urban forestry. “Nationwide, trees provide $104 billion dollars in benefits to residents from improved air quality, energy savings, and property values, with nearly $1 billion of those benefits in the DC alone. Trees provide flood mitigation, mental health benefits, critical habitat needed by our food systems, and far too many other benefits to list.”

Workforce reductions will likely reduce the resources allocated to tree planting initiatives (some grants were already revoked), harming urban tree canopies for decades to come, since “Urban trees planted today take years of care and maintenance to become mature canopy trees that provide shade, clean our air, and become valued parts of the community.”