“We’re not only losing rangers. We are losing fire staff. We’re losing search and rescue and law enforcement agents,” said Robin Howard of Estes Park, a long-time volunteer in Rocky Mountain National Park.
Howard has volunteered behind the desk at the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center and serves on the Weed Warriors, a group of Estes Valley residents who help control the Park’s invasive weeds.
She helped gather more than 300 people who showed up Monday near the iconic welcome sign at the entrance to RMNP to protest the mass firings of National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service staff last week.
Nationally, 3,400 Forest Service employees and 2,300 National Park staff were let go without warning.
This happened to Makayla, who asked that her last name not be used. The Estes Park woman received a call last Thursday around 2 p.m. She had heard rumors the call was coming, so it was a relief because she didn’t have to worry about it anymore. But she was shocked when she got her formal termination email the next day.
“My letter said that I was fired due to performance reasons, but in the same stack of papers, I got my evaluation performance, and it was fully successful,” she said. “All of my evaluations have been fully successful or even outstanding.” According to Makayla, receiving an outstanding evaluation is not easy to get.
Makayla followed the path of many young people who wish to work in conservation. She worked as a seasonal ranger while studying for a master’s in conservation biology and ecology.
Among other positions, she spent two years at RMNP as an interpretive ranger, followed by two winter seasons reestablishing the Artist in Residence program held at the William Allen White cabin above Moraine Park.
“And now I am, or I was, a forestry technician for the Forest Service on a strike team,” said Makayla of her full-time job where she worked for less than a year.
“We traveled around South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska, mostly doing disease tree salvage sales because we had that beetle kill epidemic, and those trees need to be removed from the forest for wildfire mitigation. We also worked on the Gross Reservoir Dam (height) increase because that lumber needs to get taken out by American lumber companies,” she said.
Makayla insists that the Forest Service does not have any “cushy” desk jobs. “All employees are fire employees, no matter your job title,” she said.
Also attending Monday’s rally was Kathy Brazelton of Estes Park, who retired from RMNP three years ago. “I worked for 35 years as a Park Ranger,” she said, “I was blessed to do what I love to do.”
“The Park Service has a mandate that is more than just words,” said Brazelton. “We’re here to protect these resources and to preserve them. Sometimes, that can be from too much use, and sometimes, it can be from more overt things.
“If we cut these positions, we’re not going to be able to hold up our part of that bargain,” Brazelton said.
“These parks belong to the American people. The American people are the ones getting ripped off here. What’s happening to the Rangers is wrong. It’s illegal, and it’s poorly planned. As a U.S. citizen, I’m so happy to look at our budgets with a critical eye and say, ‘Where could we do better?’ But, that’s not what this is about. The parks are going to lose. The resources are going to be lost. The American public is going to lose,” said Brazelton.
Bruce Davies of Estes Park has been leading visitors through Rocky for the past 11 years. He just bought his twelfth commercial license to guide people through the park this coming summer.
“I have conducted about 3,000 tours into the Park,” Davies said.
“Our Park, it’s a big laboratory, besides just being a wonderful gift that the American people have given ourselves,” he said. “A lot of important research goes on in the park, everything from climate change to biology. There’re all kinds of non-governmental organizations, universities, all types of research that goes on here that’s important, not just to the local area, but to the planet.”
The President’s Day rally in support of government workers on the federal lands that surround Estes Park gave each of these people a chance to show up and be vocal against the cuts being made on the federal level.
“A lot of us are still scared for our future careers, even though we don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Makayla. “I just worry about my career aspects in the future. But if we don’t stand up and speak about our stories right now, then we won’t have future careers protecting our nation’s most beloved idea, our public lands that serve all human beings, protecting our natural, cultural and historical resources,” she said.
“They are irreplaceable.”
You get a hateful result when you vote for hateful people. This administration doesn’t have a care in the world for anyone earning less than 8 figures per year. If they have their way, RMNP will be replaced with a ski resort and condos that the people of Estes Park won’t be able to afford to visit.