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“Hard work, low pay, miserable conditions, and more.”
The official motto of the California Conservation Corps won’t appeal to most job seekers. But to the thousands of conservation corps service members that work in every state across the country, those conditions are what make the job fulfilling. Workers build trails, remove invasive plants, and restore landscapes in return for grants and stipends that add up to about $15 an hour. In some forests and parks, conservation corps workers now outnumber full-time employees and perform the bulk of trail work and conservation projects. Now, those positions are in jeopardy. In April, the Trump administration announced $400 million of funding cuts to more than 1,000 AmeriCorps programs including conservation corps.
“We lost our community and urban forestry grant that funded most of my crew’s operations,” says Rachel, who served on a conservation corps in Florida until the funding cuts eliminated her position in April. (She requested to go by only her first name.) Now, she’s considering a cross-country move to another corps in New Mexico that is still hiring for the time being.
“I still feel extremely uncertain about the future and what might happen after the end of my 900-hour term [in New Mexico],” she says. “This all feels like such an existential threat to the life I want to live and the work I want to do.”
After reaching out to more than a dozen conservation corps, Backpacker has learned that some corps have been forced to disband entirely, others are drastically cutting staff, and some are unaffected—so far.
Eric Robertson, executive director of WisCorps, a Wisconsin-based conservation corps, says that the program is cutting 33 percent of its service members, and the remaining positions are also in jeopardy. The Lakes Region Conservation Corps, based in Center Harbor, New Hampshire, announced in a May 7 statement that the program had “been terminated effective immediately.” According to a report by New Hampshire Public Radio, the program lost $567,000 that was set to fund 29 service members this year. Maryland Matters reported that the Maryland Conservation Corps let go of 41 service members earlier in May. Many other programs are facing similar cuts, but did not reply to requests for comment.
Over the past 20 years, conservation corps have played an increasingly large role in the construction and maintenance of America’s trails. As the workforce at federal agencies like the U.S. Forest Service has declined over the years, conservation corps crews stepped in to take on much of the work. The corps model, with temporary employees working for modest stipends and education awards, was lauded as a cost-saving enterprise and a successor to the famed Civilian Conservation Corps, the work-relief program in the 1930s and 40s that created many of the hiking trails, roads, and bridges in our national parks and forests. Today, several thousand conservation corps workers tackle trail maintenance and other conservation projects each year.
Program directors say that these cuts will have immediate impacts in the field. Trails will go unmaintained, and wildlife and watershed projects left unfinished. The cuts will impact national parks, long-distance trails, and little-known local trail networks. Conservation corps workers spent 19,000 hours maintaining the Pacific Crest Trail last year; in 2025, the Pacific Crest Trail Association expects that figure to drop to just 4,000 hours. In New Hampshire, the now-shuttered Lakes Region Conservation Corps maintained several hundred miles of trail for local land trusts and conservation areas. At WisCorps, Robertson said that the funding cuts put a partnership to perform backcountry trail work with Isle Royale National Park in question. Securing a federal contract in 2025, he says, is “like threading a needle through a haystack.”
Other programs have lost AmeriCorps funding but are finding ways to remain operational. The Wyoming Conservation Corps, a partner of the University of Wyoming, lost its federal funding but plans to keep all of its service members for the 2025 season using crowdfunding. But John Koprowski, a dean at the University of Wyoming who also oversees the Wyoming corps program, says that this is only a short-term solution.
“This simply isn’t something that we can carry on in the future,” he says.
For now, some of the largest conservation corps have emerged from the cuts unscathed. The Montana Conservation Corps (MCC), which became one of the first programs to be funded through AmeriCorps in 1993 and now has nearly 400 AmeriCorps service members enrolled each summer, still has full funding. President Jono McKinney said there has been no indication why MCC kept its funding while other programs did not, which leaves him wondering if another round of cuts is on its way.
“I’m nervous,” he says. “Every day that we don’t get [our] funding cut is a good day.”
Twenty-four states have sued the Trump administration over the cuts, arguing that the president doesn’t have legal authority to cancel programs that were created by an act of Congress. In a statement, California attorney general Rob Bonta said, “By abruptly canceling critical grants and gutting AmeriCorps’ workforce and volunteers, DOGE is dismantling AmeriCorps without any concern for the thousands of people who are ready and eager to serve their country.” AmeriCorps leaders are hoping for a court-ordered injunction that would restore funding—and some jobs—temporarily. But Robertson said that that wouldn’t be a permanent solution. With WisCorps’ funding up for renewal in August, he’s fearful that more cuts are on the way.
Conservation corps are just one of many land management groups that have seen their funding cut under orders from the White House and DOGE. Since January, the government has fired thousands of employees at federal agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service; while it later rehired them under court order, many fear being laid off again. The administration also suspended or cancelled millions of dollars in grants that fund partner organizations like the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and Pacific Crest Trail Association. Those freezes have trickled down to conservation corps as well, including some that didn’t lose AmeriCorps funding: At MCC, McKinney says he’s waiting on $1 million in contracts for trail programs that, in years past, would be approved by now.
McKinney says that the cuts have left him and other leaders, who view the corps model as an efficient use of government dollars, confused.
“When we eliminate programs like AmeriCorps that have incredible return on investment, we’re really undercutting our public land management,” McKinney said.
“All the members are worried,” he added. “They’re asking, ‘Will I lose my job? Will I get paid?’ Young people who are choosing to serve their country through AmeriCorps are feeling a lot of anxiety, and that’s a shame.”
