_Originating in the oak-hickory and pine forests of the Boston Mountains, the Buffalo National River wends east through the Ozark Highlands of northern Arkansas. At 150 miles long, the river spans four counties—Newton, Searcy, Marion, and Baxter—flowing through verdant hills that give way to steep, variegated bluffs. At certain junctures, cliffs of stratified sandstone, limestone, and dolomite loom higher than four hundred feet, towering over the canoers, kayakers, and rafters who come from all over the state and beyond to paddle the river.

In 1972, the Buffalo became the country’s first national river, with roughly 135 of its 150 rambling miles and around 95,000 acres of surrounding landscape falling under the management of the National Park Service. The territory is so expansive that employees are typically assigned to one of its three management districts: upper, middle, or lower. Tending to the campgrounds, trails, and riverbanks in a single district often requires hours in travel time alone. “It’s a lot of driving,” said Leah Saffian, a former fee collector who was assigned to the upper district prior to her termination on February 14. Saffian is one of about a thousand  National Park employees fired amid sweeping cuts to the federal workforce. She is one of four employees who lost their jobs at the Buffalo National River. 

Saffian is a Texas native who built a conservation-oriented career in Northwest Arkansas, working with AmeriCorps, Washington County Environmental Affairs, and the Northwest Arkansas Land Trust. She was living in Fayetteville when she learned of an opening with the Buffalo National River, a place she had paddled and hiked frequently with her black labrador mix, Eli. She interviewed for the position—recreation fee technician—in December 2024 and received her official offer in mid-January. The job required her to relocate to a rural community without access to affordable housing. So, Saffian got creative. “I bought a camper and found a place where I could live,” she said. “I spent . . . pretty much all my savings.”

Saffian had been searching for the right job for six months when she was hired by the National Park Service. “This was just a huge break for me,” she said. “To work with Buffalo River . . . meant, you know, that I could learn more and become more connected to this place and be able to share that connection with other people.” With three weeks on the job, she was growing comfortable with the sweeping territory she was responsible for covering, the hours of driving between the five campgrounds she oversaw. As one of three fee technicians in the park—and the only one assigned to the upper district—she had been tasked with collecting fees from campground visitors, ensuring their adherence to park rules, and talking with them about nature conservation. She was also beginning to work on essential projects, the most critical of which involved rehabilitating sections of the Steel Creek Campground that were damaged by floodwaters in November. “The ranger station was under four feet of water,” Saffian said. “A lot of the campgrounds got washed out. A lot of things rusted. There was . . . a ton of work needed in that particular part of the park to prepare it for the coming season.”

Saffian was working at Steel Creek the afternoon of February 14, when her supervisor radioed her. “They told me to stop what I was doing and to get some place with cell service,” she said. “I knew that was a really bad sign.” 

_While Saffian searched for cell service in the upper district, Stacy Ramsey, a river ranger, was making her way along the access points of the river’s lower district. Though she was usually stationed at Tyler Bend, in the middle district, Ramsey was working on a parkwide safety project to improve signage along the river. She had spent her morning photographing existing river access signs, traveling from Rush Campground to Buffalo Point Campground to Dillards Ferry to Spring Creek Campground. Ramsey was nearing her fifth year of work with the Buffalo National River but her first as a full-time river ranger, meaning that her employment fell under probationary status. She’d started as a seasonal worker in 2020, when COVID pushed much of the country toward outdoor recreation, and the state and national parks that remained open began to see influxes of visitors. She continued working as a seasonal river ranger through March of 2024, when the park extended her position to a full-time role, thanks to funding through the Inflation Reduction Act. 

River rangers are part of the park’s safety division, acting in tandem with law enforcement and participating in search-and-rescue operations. Ramsey estimated that, in nearly five years of service with the park, she participated in twenty search and rescues. “Most of them involved carrying somebody on a stretcher from maybe the bottom of Hemmed-In Hollow,” she said. “That’s a pretty tough climb out, even if you’re just carrying yourself. So it’s all hands on deck when we have those rescue missions.” As a river ranger, Ramsey’s primary responsibility was to help visitors avoid such emergencies, educate them on matters of park safety, alert them to risky water or trail conditions, and prevent them from potentially life-threatening situations.

Improving visitor safety was at the forefront of her mind as she cataloged the existing river signage, which the park wanted to make larger and more visible to paddlers. “The sun had just come out,” Ramsey said. She observed the beauty around her, used her phone to capture a few shots of the river. “I glanced at my phone after I’d taken a picture,” she said. “An email had popped up.” Ramsey read the word “terminate” in the email’s subject line. Right away, she called the operations manager in the park’s law enforcement division.

Upon speaking with supervisors over the phone, both Saffian and Ramsey drove from their respective locations to park headquarters, in Harrison. Both had been locked out of their employee accounts by the time they arrived. Both encountered bewildered park staff who expressed their condolences and their shock that four essential team members had been terminated without any consultation from the park. 

“The jobs weren’t reviewed before they were terminated,” Ramsey said. “They were just terminated.” While she knew that federal job cuts were likely, she had felt relatively safe in her position, which was critical to the park, and at the Buffalo National River, which has struggled with understaffing. “Because my job was part of . . . the public safety division of the park, I honestly did not think my job would be cut—or cut so quickly,” she said. As a new hire who had filled the vital position of ensuring that people pay to use the park campgrounds, Saffian also felt blindsided. “The rug was just pulled out from underneath me,” she said. Also terminated, according to Ramsey and Saffian, were a maintenance employee—one of only three serving the middle district—and a park guide at the Buffalo Point Visitor Center who had recently filled the position. “Before she had started, they had somebody from maintenance filling in,” Ramsey said. Without the newly hired guide to staff it, the park was forced to close the Buffalo Point Ranger Station from February 15 through February 17—Presidents Day weekend.

_Both Ramsey and Saffian recognize that they are just two casualties in a wave of federal job cuts. And yet, they both chose to share their stories over social media, hoping that they could convey the human and operational impacts of their terminations. “I get the sense that some people disconnect from the issue if it’s not directly affecting them or someone they know,” Ramsey said. “These people that are impacted they’re regular, average Americans. They’re your neighbors.” 

Ramsey grew up in Marshall, and she still lives there today. In 2019, she purchased her first home, so she is paying down a mortgage. Her three sons are grown, out of the house, so her modest income from the National Park Service was sufficient. Without it, though, she is worried. She is searching for full-time work. “It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this much stress,” she said. She was offered no financial severance, and her health insurance expires thirty-one days from her termination date. “That gives me time, at least, to get refills of medication,” she said. Her vision and dental coverage only extended through her last pay period, which was Saturday, February 22. “I had an appointment to get new glasses on March 3,” she said. 

Having spent most of her savings to relocate for a job she no longer has, Saffian is also struggling with uncertainty. “I really want to stay in this area, since I’ve already invested so much to be here,” she said. Finding steady employment in the rural counties surrounding the park, though, is difficult. Saffian said she is already accepting contract positions back in Northwest Arkansas, to support herself temporarily. When she is not searching for jobs—for some sense of financial security—she is trying to focus on what sustains her spiritually: the encouragement she is receiving from her northern Arkansas community, her work as a visual artist, and her dog, Eli. “He is keeping me afloat right now,” she said. And yet, her mind can’t help traveling to darker places. Lately, she has been second-guessing her fifteen-year career in conservation. “If I had known going into this how truly challenging it would be . . . I may have taken a different path.”

_In 2023, the Buffalo National River broke its own tourism record, welcoming 1,549,467 visitors. Seasonal employees have historically helped manage the impact of increased park traffic during the busiest months, but the full-time staff is small. “Everybody knows everybody very well,” Ramsey said. In the wake of their terminations, she and Saffian are thinking of their former colleagues and considering the impacts to one of the state’s most significant natural resources. 

“We know that the park won’t be able to keep up with demands,” Saffian said. “It will be easier for people to camp in places where they’re not supposed to . . . and potentially not pay for their campsites.” She also cited the potential for environmental damage from visitors failing to clean up after themselves. Ramsey is concerned that everything from park safety to visitor wait times to educational programming will be affected. “[The staff will] be stretched to just do the basics,” she said.

The long-term consequences of broad job cuts within the National Park Service are difficult to project. When she posted about her experience on Facebook, Leah Saffian decided not to theorize. Instead, she posed a question: “What could the people behind these decisions possibly stand to gain from eroding one of the greatest conservation acts in the world?”