Russ Mason

Bureaucracies, by design, resist change.
They aren’t open to new ideas. Max Weber described it this way: “The fully developed bureaucratic apparatus compares with other organizations exactly as does the machine with the non-mechanical modes of production.” In other words, like a machine, bureaucracies are rationally designed but once built operate only as intended.

There’s been plenty of recent attention paid to Elon Musk and the effects of his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Unsurprisingly, little has been said about impacts to natural resources conservation.
The exceptions have been personnel cuts to U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and National Park Service (NPS) programs that support outdoor recreation and wildfire management. Fish and wildlife conservation have barely entered the conversation, perhaps because much of the press, like most Americans, don’t really understand what’s at stake. After all, 85% of Americans don’t fish and 95% don’t hunt.