The U.S. Forest Service plans for a limited budget in the fiscal year of 2025. The federal agency asked for $8.9 Billion in funding, but they’re expecting to receive much less.

Some of the impacted areas in the Northland would be the Boundary Waters Canoeing Area along with the Superior National Forest. Tom Hall, the Superior National Forest’s Supervisor says the limited budgets will significantly harm several ranger stations in the Northland.

“So for here on the Superior National Forest, we have already seen some of those effects in our staffing of our front desks. We had to reduce our hours both at the Tofte and Grand Marais and Cook office locations,” Hall said. “We fully anticipate that that will probably continue into this next summer as well. So the next permit season, the next summer season.”

Even though the U.S. Forest Service plans for a potentially limited budget for the fiscal year 2025, there’s already wide-scale issues across the nation. Due to budget constraints, the U.S. Forest Service will not hire temporary seasonal employees next summer.

“We are a part of the Department of Agriculture and then there are multiple aspects of the Forest Service,” Hall said. “We are dependent on appropriations from Congress, as is the rest of the federal government, we are under a continuing resolution currently. Those appropriations are both within our staffing and within our normal program budgets are really things that we react to.”

A limited budget for the U.S. Forest Service would cause hardships with ranger stations. One potential issue would be not enough front desk workers providing permits for people to camp up in the BWCA, according to Hall. He also added it would impact wilderness rangers and foresters with their work because of fewer funds available.

“But that has had other impacts across other programs as well, whether that’s wilderness rangers out in the boundary waters or foresters out preparing timber sales or reducing wildfire risk out on the landscape. So staffing fire engines and other things, there’s an impact in who we’re able to recruit and really those positions that we’re able to fill based on the budgets that we have available to us.”

One of the many important tasks for members of the U.S. Forest Service is extinguishing wildfires. Nearly a quarter of their annual budget is dedicated to wildfire prevention. Chris Knopf, the Executive Director, with the Friends of Boundary Waters, says the budget for the U.S. Forest Service will have an impact on wildfire management next summer.

“When you look at the budget of the U.S. Forest Service, it’s just under $9 billion, about $8.9 billion for the upcoming year. And $2.3 billion of that, about 25% it deals with wildfires.”

Knopf also said the lack of federal funds for the United States Forest Service has been an ongoing issue for many years.

“I look at a trend over for really something more than 40 years. And so really, since the early 1980s, there’s been a long-term erosion in funding that impacts both the U.S. Forest Service as part of the Department of Agriculture, but also the Department of Interior that manages the national park system. So this is the macro trend is a long-term erosion in public funding to protect and manage public lands.”

People can learn more about the Superior National Forest at some of their upcoming Open House events. The Superior National Forest will have an open house in Aurora on the 28th. An open house in Tofte on the 30th. There will be an open house here in Duluth on November 12th. Finally an open house up in Grand Marais where people can meet their new district ranger on the Gunflint Ranger District on the 13th of November.