Speaking for the Forests with our Words and Actions

Photo by willfess courtesy of Friends of the Boundary Waters

As the United States tumbles onward in the present administration’s quest to free corporations and billionaires from tedious little things like regulations that protect health and the environment, our forests and waters are now threatened in ways that are unprecedented in most of our lifetimes. The trajectory to unravel government and shatter federal institutions is moving forward apace, and our new national motto seems to be “make corporations and billionaires richer, faster.”

Following earlier passage in the House of Representatives, on April 16, 2026, the U.S. Senate passed (by one vote) legislation to lift a 20-year ban on sulfide mining for copper and nickel in more than 200,000 acres in Minnesota’s Superior National Forest. This ban was in place, in part, to protect waters in the Rainy River watershed that flow through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA) and westward to Rainy Lake and Voyageurs National Park along the Ontario border.

The mining enthusiasts have argued that the proposed mine sites are outside of the official boundaries of the BWCA itself, and thus not a big deal. But water doesn’t respect lines on a map; it never has. Sulfide surface mines are very different from the deep-shaft copper and iron mines of the region’s mining boom years. Upstream sulfide mine pollution, which includes sulfuric acid and heavy metals, could easily become downstream pollution to lakes and streams in the BWCA and beyond.

The BWCA sits on a subcontinental divide on the Laurentian shield. From this geological high point, its rain and snow-sourced headwaters flow north toward Hudson Bay, south into the Mississippi River basin, and the eastern reaches of the area flow to Lake Superior, and from there through the Great Lakes.

Clean, healthy headwaters mean healthier downstream rivers, coastlines, lakes, and bays. Some describe the BWCA as pristine, which in today’s world is perhaps a quaint notion, with global atmospheric distribution of mercury and traces of DDT and a host of other nasty things deposited by rain and snow throughout the world. Still, these headwaters are about as clean as you can get in the surface waters of our little planet, and that’s no small thing.

The water quality is exceptional in part because these waters are surrounded by one-million acres of the southern reaches of our continent’s boreal forest. A healthy forest is an almost magical source of clean water. Forest soil, rich with living organisms, teams up with plants on the forest floor and the fungal networks within the forest root systems to capture, filter and store water, this helps prevent soil runoff by slowing the flow from snowmelt or rainstorms.

People who love the Boundary Waters and Quetico Provincial Park (its Canadian counterpart on the north side of the border), are taking the news of this newly legalized threat hard, and there are calls to rally and keep on fighting to safeguard this rare and precious freshwater treasure. This includes urging Minnesota’s DNR to cancel a state mineral lease that could be one of the first steps to stopping this mine. This, and other strategies may, or may not prevail. It won’t be easy, but love is a powerful motivator, and the response is already rising.

Sadly, the BWCA isn’t the only threatened landscape in the U.S. Forests. The Trump administration has announced plans to close the U.S. Forest Service’s (USFS) nine regional offices, to be replaced by 15 state directors, but many will cover multiple states— as many as six, seven or even thirteen— which looks fairly regional on their map. National headquarters will leave Washington, D.C. for Salt Lake City— maybe they like the airport?

The administration also plans to shutter and consolidate most of the USFS research stations. As the Federal News Network reported last week, “The agency’s FY 2027 budget request would eliminate about 800 of the Forest Service’s 1,110 research scientist positions,” eviscerating a network of forest professionals who understand the needs and challenges to healthy forest management in diverse ecoregions.

Here in the Great Lakes region, (part of the current Region 9) our forests are still recovering from the logging boom of the past two centuries. Invasive species, landscape fragmentation, and a warming climate that increases drought and wildfire risk, are all part of the mix that managers need to balance, not to mention human pressure for forest products and recreation. I will humbly suggest that managing a white pine-hemlock-mixed hardwoods forest in the Lake Superior basin is different from managing the loblolly pines of the U.S. South, or the red cedar and Douglas fir forests of the Pacific Northwest. I would also argue that on-the-ground research by people with local knowledge has not only scientific value, but civic and social value.

It is probably safe to assume the plan is to optimize federal forest management for timber sales to large multi-national corporations, instead of balancing that demand with caring about watersheds, soil conservation, wildlife habitat, clean air, outdoor recreation, fire resilience, etc. If so, then maybe the “Wall Street goes to Utah” approach is all you need. Ronald Reagan was widely reported as having said “If you’ve seen one [redwood tree], you’ve seen them all.” A 2016 North State Public Radio story explained, “What he actually said, during a long, tiring press tour, was, ‘A tree is a tree—how many more do you need to look at?’ ” For the Trump administration, this seems to be, “a forest is a forest –why do we need all this local management and research?”

The U.S. Forest Service has come a long way since the era of Gifford Pinchot, and Aldo Leopold’s “green fire” epiphany that the wolves he was helping to eradicate as a young forester were part of the forest and vital to forest health. Over the years I’ve had my occasional battles with USFS staff over management plans and such, but I must say, the dedication to the land, the agency, and to public service among these professionals has always impressed me, from the person behind the desk, to the back-country rangers. The Trump administration holds a certain kind of contempt for both professional expertise and science, and the loss of both for the nation’s forests is a civic and ecological tragedy.

Long ago on a summer’s night, I stood with three generations of family on the shores of Omega Lake in the BWCA, and we watched a total eclipse of the moon. As the crescent of light emerged on the edge of the dark disk, the youngest member of our little group said, with awe in his voice, “this is SO cool.” Yes it was, along with the loons calling across the still waters and the scent of balsam and spruce hanging in the night air. This magical moment was a gift of the original indigenous caretakers of this landscape, our public lands, and those in public service who care for them.

In Dr. Suess’ book The Lorax, the Lorax character says, “I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.” We all need to speak up for our forests now, and the institutional capacity to care for them as living systems, and not cheap capital for private corporate gain. Reach out to your elected officials, businesses that make their living supporting outdoor recreation, and others who can help secure a hopeful future for the Boundary Waters, and for the U.S. Forest Service and other public land agencies.

—Jane Elder

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