Tell the U.S. Forest Service to drop 150 percent visitor fee increase for Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness

The U.S. Forest Service has proposed to more than double the visitor fees it charges to visit the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) in the Superior National Forest of Minnesota. The 1.1 million-acre BWCAW is one of the most visited Wildernesses in the entire National Wilderness Preservation System.

Your input is needed by September 2 to convince the agency to refrain from such a drastic increase. 

The Forest Service has charged a visitor fee for the BWCAW since 1998, and hasn’t raised the fee since 2008. Now, however, the agency has proposed to raise the fee for youth from $8 per trip to $20, and for adults from the current $16 per trip to $40—a whopping 150 percent increase.

Access to public lands and Wilderness should be available to everyone, not just those who can afford to pay.

While Wilderness Watch supports quotas and permit systems to reduce impacts and protect wildlife and solitude for visitors, the proposed 150 percent fee increase for the BWCAW will both add to the commodification of the BWCAW and make it increasingly out of reach to lower-income individuals and families.

The truth is that the Forest Service and Congress have been starving the wilderness program for years. While nearly 20 percent of the National Forest System is designated Wilderness, the budget for Wilderness is far less than one percent of the agency’s budget. The Forest Service shouldn’t be charging wilderness visitors exorbitant fees so it can spend taxpayer money elsewhere. It needs to fund Wilderness at a reasonable level out of its current budget.

And let’s not forget that this new fee increase proposal also comes on the heels of the Trump administration’s drastic staffing cuts at the Forest Service—including wilderness rangers. Those cuts included the loss of about 100 staffers on just the Superior National Forest.

The public now shouldn’t be asked to backfill those severe budget and staff cuts that affect the BWCAW. Instead, the Forest Service should seek to restore those drastic cuts internally within the administration before asking the public to pay more to simply visit a Wilderness.

As the heritage of all Americans, the BWCAW should remain accessible to all members of the public, not just those who can afford to pay exorbitant fees.