February 14, 2025 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SUWA Statement on Mass Firings at Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management – 2.14.25
Contacts:
Grant Stevens, Communications Director, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA); (319) 427-0260; grant@suwa.org
Washington, DC – Today, the Department of the Interior announced mass firings of more than 2,300 public servants at the Department of the Interior, including the Bureau of Land Management, which manages nearly 23 million acres of federal public lands in Utah. Below is a statement from SUWA Wildlands Director Neal Clark and additional information.
“Today’s firing of hundreds of staff at the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is a significant blow to how remarkable public lands and resources in Utah will be managed. Already woefully understaffed and under-resourced, today’s decisions is a self-fulfilling prophecy to downgrade the protection and management of Utah’s redrock country, all while furthering the bogus argument that state or private companies could do a better job of ‘managing’ federal public lands,” said Neal Clark, SUWA Wildlands Director.
“Federal employees, such as those who work for the BLM, make up a large percentage of the workforce in rural Utah. For example, government employees (including but not limited to federal employees) make up 23% of the workforce in Garfield County and 25% in Wayne County. It’s plain to see that the Trump administration could care less about the federal workforce that makes our nation run and the Americans who all benefit from their service.”
Additional information:
The Department of the Interior (DOI) is a Cabinet-level Department that manages America’s vast natural and cultural resources. Employing over 70,000 people, DOI has 11 Bureaus, including the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). In Utah, the BLM manages 22.8 million acres of public lands, ranging from “spectacular red-rock canyons and roaring rivers to high mountain peaks and expansive salt flats” including Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (designated in 1996 and the first monument managed by the BLM) and Bears Ears National Monument (designated in 2016 and jointly managed with the US Forest Service).
The BLM also manages several Congressionally-designated Wilderness areas in Utah (including remarkable places such as Muddy Creek (Emery County), Canaan Mountain (Washington County), and the Cedar Mountains (Tooele County)). BLM-Utah also manages more than 80 Wilderness Study Areas, and other significant public landscapes including Nine Mile Canyon, Red Cliffs National Conservation Area, and the Desolation Canyon and Labyrinth Canyon stretches of the Green River. SUWA’s signature bill, America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, would designate more than 8 million acres of BLM land in Utah as wilderness.
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The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) is a nonprofit organization with members and supporters from around the country dedicated to protecting America’s redrock wilderness. From offices in Moab, Salt Lake City, and Washington, DC, our team of professionals defends the redrock, organizes support for America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, and stewards this world-renowned landscape. Learn more at www.suwa.org.
