That heavy rain the other day? Yeah, that was Mother Nature crying for help.

Thanks to the Trump administration, our National Park staff are being subjected to undue layoffs, and both workers and the protected habitats will suffer as a result.

Deer tracks, rabbit droppings, and an upside down American flag. No, that’s not Yosemite’s announcement that they’ll be moving overseas, but a call for distress on behalf of all National Parks.

The Trump administration’s cuts to the National Park Service, led by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), are nothing short of unpatriotic. I don’t think Lady Liberty would be impressed to hear that instead of supporting America’s nature and tourism, we’re making mega-billionaires even more MAGA. Oops, I mean mega (but either works).

As a high school senior majoring in forest and fire sciences in college, I need you to realize just how scary this is.

According to BBC, DOGE’s mass terminations have already led to 5% of the National Park Service staff being cut out.

5% sound negligible to you? For perspective, that’s around 1,000 workers – and more firings are to come. DOGE can’t fire the animals inhabiting this land, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were hunted down ‘Open Season’ style to clear the land for oil and gas extraction.

These firings will lead to unkempt parks, trash and habitat disturbance, and decreased ecotourism around the country. There’s a reason you don’t see Coke cans and cigarette butts littering the park grounds, and it’s not the common courtesy of your fellow park-goers.

These irresponsible staff cuts are projected to leave hundreds of National Parks understaffed and forced to make changes for the worse. I’m no forest expert (yet), but I doubt this will do good things for our wildfire prevention.

The California wildfires in January proved that now more than ever, we need to support environmental research, not defund it.

Those National Parks, while beautiful, also provide valuable field work to students studying natural resources. That ongoing field work could be the solution to fighting those catastrophic wildfires, if the land is still protected.

I want to be a firefighter, but that means there still needs to be land left to defend. As dystopian as it may sound, there could come a time when the only “wildfires” to be fought are in concrete jungles.

Now, I have no doubt that the talented (and remaining) workers of America’s National Parks can overcome these mass firings. But regardless of how many more littered cans or park shut downs this leads to, it sets a dangerous precedent for the future. This movement away from federal funding and global warming research (and leaving a certain Paris Agreement) will affect students in more than one way.

First it’s removing the U.S. from global warming prevention programs (and that has cataclysmic consequences of its own, but that’s another story). Next, it’s defunding our National Parks that supply us with oxygen and ecotourism. With a president that likes to claim global warming is a hoax, it’s not too far-fetched to believe that funding for environmental studies could be on the chopping block next.

Now, Mother Nature is not going anywhere. Even if we chop down all the truffula trees we can find, she will survive. But with the U.S. potentially entering a recession, many graduating seniors have job stability to worry about, and that can impact their potential college studies.

No biggie, it’s just that four years of my life and thousands of dollars in tuition could go down the drain. But even worse, this could cause students to choose alternative majors, abandoning the sinking ship that is environmental protection.

The more ice that melts in Alaska, the more research we need to combat global warming—so the more students the better.
The dangerous changes being made by our Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to deregulate environmental protections in order to support Trump’s Day One executive orders do not bode well for environmental students. The EPA, and don’t forget, that’s environmental PROTECTION, is being used as a way to make money, not support America’s natural beauty.

Changes to regulations on power plants, natural gas and oil production, and mandatory greenhouse gas reporting is just the tip of the melting iceberg. And we, America’s citizens, are headed right for it, ‘Titanic’ style.

If Trump’s movement to prioritize American power production over the health of America’s soil, water, and air spreads like our increasing wildfires, we’ll need more firefighters, more environmental researchers, and more soil scientists.

Juniors and seniors, it’s time to declare. When choosing a major, please be aware. Trump may protest, but don’t mind his pleas. For we have the power, and we speak for the trees.