Forest Service OKs Idaho group’s request to use banned chainsaws in wilderness
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- U.S. Forest Service approved Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association's request.
- Approval allows gas chainsaws on 61 trails Jan. 1 to Aug. 1 for three years.
- Wilderness Watch says there was no public notice and no NEPA review.
The U.S. Forest Service has approved an Idaho group’s request to exempt a rule in the largest wilderness area in the Lower 48 in what it says is a much-needed move to clear trails, but some conservation groups are calling it a step toward undoing protections for some of Idaho — and the nation’s — most safeguarded outdoor spaces.
The Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association, a nonprofit trade association for businesses leading outdoor adventures, asked the Forest Service to approve the use of chainsaws to clear nearly 550 miles of trails in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in Central Idaho. The request, which was first made in May 2025 to then-newly appointed Forest Service head Tom Schultz, an Idaho forester, has become the subject of criticism from public lands advocacy nonprofit Wilderness Watch.
The Forest Service approved the plan Wednesday, IOGA said in a news release.
Wilderness Watch said in a news release last week that it obtained then-IOGA Executive Director Aaron Lieberman’s 2025 letter to Schultz through a Freedom of Information Act Request. The Montana-based nonprofit and dozens of other groups, as well as retired Forest Service employees, sent their own letter to Schultz on April 28 in opposition to the request.
Opponents said the request could set a precedent to allow other prohibited activities in wilderness areas while outsourcing the Forest Service’s responsibilities to third parties. The groups also criticized a lack of transparency around the proposal and said the public should be given the opportunity to comment on the request.
But IOGA Executive Director Erik Weiseth told the Idaho Statesman the goal isn’t to erode the protections for wilderness but instead to improve access and address an outsized problem.
“Right now, with this backlog, I personally just don’t see a reality where that’s solvable without doing something like this,” Weiseth said.
Idaho wilderness area has tens of thousands of downed trees on trails
Wilderness areas are bound by rules meant to preserve the primitive, “untrammeled” nature of the land. Nothing motorized is allowed, from motorboats and airplanes to motorized maintenance equipment. The removal of downed trees has to be done with hand saws, which take more time than modern chainsaws.
Weiseth said the stretches of trail IOGA is looking to address in the Frank Church wilderness are not typical cases of trail maintenance.
An analysis by the Salmon-Challis National Forest, which oversees the wilderness area, said the 542 miles of trail IOGA proposed make up 44% of the trails in the Frank Church and are “effectively unusable” due to downed trees from wildfire, disease or insect infestation.
IOGA’s news release said a helicopter analysis of trail conditions in October 2025 found “between 80,000 and 110,000 downed trees across just 150 of those miles — an estimated 500 to 700 trees per mile.”
“They’re truly terrible,” Weiseth said. “There’s just no way around it.”
IOGA members who have permits to operate in the wilderness are unable to access those areas because of the massive deadfall, Weiseth said.
Lieberman’s letter to Schultz pointed out the 1980 establishing language for the Frank Church wilderness includes some requirements and allowances that aren’t carved out for other wilderness areas. That appeared to be key in the Forest Service’s decision to allow the use of the otherwise-banned tools.
The legislation that created the wilderness area directed the Forest Service to clear obstructions from the trails “on at least an annual basis.” Documents from congressional committee meetings for the creation of the wilderness area show committee members had “no objection to the use of chainsaws or other mechanized equipment” to clear trail obstructions, Lieberman’s letter pointed out.
Weiseth said the condition of the trails IOGA members will help maintain attests to the fact that maintenance certainly isn’t on an annual schedule as legislation outlined.
“That obviously hasn’t happened in some places in decades if there’s 700 trees a mile across the trail,” he said.
The Forest Service approved chainsaw work on 61 trails, most of which are considered mainline or secondary trails — the primary routes in the wilderness and the initial offshoots that branch from them.
The approval allows for the use of gas-powered chainsaws between Jan. 1 and Aug. 1, and it expires after three years. IOGA said in its news release that “authorized workers, including licensed outfitters, will begin trail clearing work immediately.” The maintenance does not include other trail work like rock removal or retreading.
Chainsaws ‘fundamentally undermine’ wilderness, opponents say
Dana Johnson, policy director for Wilderness Watch, told the Statesman in an email that the wilderness advocacy nonprofit is “frankly shocked the Forest Service is authorizing this without any public notice or opportunity to comment.” She also pointed to the apparent lack of a review under the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires government agencies to consider the environmental implications of projects and allow for public comment.
“They’ve been working on this with IOGA for the last year, so they had plenty of time to follow the law and engage the public,” Johnson said. “They didn’t give us notice of the decision either — we heard about it from Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association posts.”
Wilderness Watch sent an urgent request to delay implementation to Forest Service leader Schultz on Wednesday evening.
Wilderness Watch and the myriad groups and individuals co-signing its letter — including Moscow-based Friends of the Clearwater and Priest River-based Selkirk Conservation Alliance — called former IOGA director Lieberman’s letter “a diffuse request by commercial interests to clear wilderness trails across broad regions for an unknown period of time,” and said it could set a precedent that would degrade wilderness.
In its April letter to Schultz, Wilderness Watch said chainsaws “embody the attitude that human convenience, impatience, and demand come first, and that no place is beyond the reach of our appetite to dominate and control.”
“Chainsaw use fundamentally undermines the goals of the Wilderness Act,” the letter said.
Johnson said the nonprofit had the same concerns with the modified proposal.
“There are always different degrees of bad, and maybe the latest version of the proposal is less bad than the previous (though, without seeing an actual proposal and analysis, I can’t be sure), but it doesn’t make it legal or good for wilderness preservation,” she said in an email. “Crosscut saws are still available, in many backcountry instances they are as efficient as chainsaws, and the agency has a proud history of keeping motorized intrusions, like chainsaws, out of these places. We don’t think it’s legally defensible.”
Weiseth said no one from Wilderness Watch contacted him about the modified proposal prior to its approval. He reiterated that the proposal is narrow and specific, and noted that it has limits on the timeline and trails where work is allowed.
Idaho conservation group backs wilderness chainsaw use
Not all conservation groups are against IOGA’s project. Josh Johnson, Central Idaho Director for the Idaho Conservation League, told the Statesman in an interview that the nonprofit met with Weiseth to learn more and came away feeling like the plan was a good way to address a serious problem.
He said it’s understandable that the issue is concerning for environmental groups.
“We’re living in an age where wilderness protections maybe aren’t as ironclad as might have thought historically, just with everything that we’re seeing on public lands these days,” Josh Johnson said. “I think there is a very real fear of how wilderness areas can be degraded by different management actions.”
He also acknowledged that there are areas of the Frank Church wilderness that are “exceptionally bad” and “more trees than trail.” He said addressing that unusual situation, especially given the regulations specific to the wilderness area, doesn’t appear to be a “slippery slope” to bring chainsaws to other Idaho wilderness areas.
Weiseth said he also understands Wilderness Watch and other groups’ concerns.
“I’m a big wilderness advocate, and I believe that wilderness is different and should be treated differently, and we should think about it differently,” Weiseth said. “It took me a minute to get my head and my emotions aligned around this one, so I get why people are going to be passionate about this. I think that they should be, and I’m glad that they are.”
The IOGA director said that in addition to allowing outfitters and guides to reach their state licensed operating areas, the chainsaw maintenance work will open access for other recreators who may in turn become future advocates for wilderness and the Forest Service.
Wilderness Watch’s letter to Schultz said inaccessible trails are “part of a wilderness experience.” The nonprofit said that rather than relying on third-party commercial interests to handle maintenance issues, the Forest Service should focus on staffing and funding at adequate levels to handle trail maintenance on its own.
That’s where all sides agree.
“The real solution to this issue is proper funding for the Forest Service and their trails program to prevent these trail maintenance backlogs and associated access challenges from occurring in the first place,” Josh Johnson said.
