Sweeping changes are coming for the agency that manages roughly a third of America's public land, the U.S. Forest Service.

The agency announced a dramatic overhaul of cuts, closures, and consolidation.

That's on top of the Trump administration's latest budget request, which seeks to slash billions of dollars.

As William Brangham reports, the administration calls these common sense moves, but some

worry it could undermine the agency's mission.

We have to manage within our budgets.

We can't hire staff and have staff than in excess of the money we have.

On Capitol Hill, U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz made the case for the sweeping reorganization of his 121-year-old agency.

What we're trying to do is push decision-making down to the ground.

So the men and women on the ground give them more responsibility and authority to make decisions

and to remove some of middle management and to move people more resources to the forest.

The Forest Service manages grazing, logging, mining, and firefighting

on 200 million acres of U.S. land, as well as thousands of trails and forests

that millions of Americans visit every year.

Its science facilities also run the largest forest

research project in the country. The new plan calls for shuttering three-quarters of those facilities,

moving the entire agency's headquarters from Washington, D.C. to Salt Lake City, and closing every

regional office in the country. It's a radical departure that will

impact thousands of jobs, but an essential one, according to Associate Chief Chris French.

He's the number two in the service. We have to make choices. The challenge is, and the right

way to do this, is to make those choices where you're putting people first.

French says the agency is now over budget and understaffed where it matters most.

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