In Forest Service reducing permits for Boundary Waters, John Myers reports for the Duluth News Tribune:
Superior National Forest officials say they will reduce the number of people allowed into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness next year after throngs of visitors caused overcrowding and damaged the natural resources in 2020 and 2021.
The move — reducing the number of permits issued to groups for some specific entry points — is hoped to help reduce the recurring problems that seemed to worsen during the pandemic.
Officials said they will focus on the 24 busiest entry points of the total 74 entry points in the wilderness.
The reductions won’t be drastic, probably one to two fewer permits daily for the busiest entry points, said Susan Catton, a spokesperson for the Superior National Forest.
Catton said the final permit numbers are still being decided and will be made public sometime before 2022 BWCAW permits go up for reservations Jan. 26 at 9 a.m.
Catton said forest officials have been working with businesses around the BWCAW, such as outfitters, for about 18 months on how to deal with the problems. . . .
The problem wasn’t just more visitors but also many new visitors who either didn’t know or didn’t care about the wilderness ethic of “leave no trace.” Some campers cut down live trees, expanded fire rings, didn’t dispose of human waste properly and left large amounts of trash behind. Forest Service officials at one point said they were seeing "unprecedented" natural resource damage. . . .
We'd been reading about the damage and seeing photos of the damage on social media. We're happy to see the National Forest officials try to get the issues under control.
Photo: A live tree cut down by campers last summer. Superior National Forest officials say they are reducing the number of Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness permits available in 2022 to reduce problems in the wilderness. Contributed to Duluth News Tribune / U.S. Forest Service.
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