Today’s column (gift link) is about the reported reorganization of the U.S. Forest Service, and specific impacts on forestry research here in Minnesota.
Again I find myself lamenting a decision by our present administration, which I realize is tiresome to some. But my argument speaks not to partisans, but to the practical: the people who simply want things to work. Just as a good business person knows that cutting research and development is a short sighted way to make a profit, the same is true in forestry.
You will hear, as I have heard, arguments that this is no big deal. It’s just a consolidation and relocation of key offices. Interagency wildfire responses won’t be impacted. “Salt Lake City is closer to the woods than Washington, D.C.!” But the practical impact is obvious. If you talk to researchers on the ground, this is de facto smothering of many critical research projects, most of them tied to climate change. This gets at something that many people miss. Even though forestry is tied to harvesting trees, it’s one of the sciences that has conclusively proven the existence of climate change.
It’s not just the present ecological impact we need to worry about, but the viability of our public forest resources for generations to come.
Instead, we again hear old arguments for immediate exploitation of all resources, regardless of how it’s done. We want it cheap. We want it fast. And we’re not terribly concerned about what happens next. That’s because, by then, we’ve got the money. To be clear, in this case “we” does not mean “you and me.”
This is literally, and I do mean literally, the thinking of 19th century timber barons. They bought densely forested land across the North Woods and, in ten years, cut it down to fields of stumps and mud. The money and timber left. The jobs left. We got the cleanup.
This approach created the reasons why we have so many 100-year-old fire museums and memorials in Minnesota. It’s why we may never again see a 300-year-old white pine in this part of the world.
In Minnesota, the discovery of iron ore beneath the forest floors at least provided something in return. But there again, the best ore left quickly, as did most of the money. Strategic use of our resources eludes us when we view those resources as lottery tickets that are sure to pay out.
This cycle always tempts those with millions who want billions, but for everyone else it’s a loser. And in the long run it puts our nation, even our species, at risk for a fate we wouldn’t wish on our worst enemies.
So why do we wish it for our great-grandchildren?
Read “Trump’s Forest Service overhaul spells doom for ecology research,” in the Sunday, April 12, 2026 edition of the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist and member of the editorial board for the Minnesota Star Tribune. His new book about Hibbing Mayor Victor Power and his momentous fight against the world’s largest corporation will be out soon.
2 responses to “Forest Service reorganization throws vital research into chaos”
My dad was born in 1900, and he lived near Hazelhurst Wis, where some of his family still lived when I was a child. This is an area of forests and lakes, and that’s how I remember it. But once I saw a really old photo of the Hazelhurst area that had no trees, just stumps, and random houses. So that taught me about the ‘Take it all now’ mindset that parts of our country and our resources have gone through. Do we think about future generations when we mine enough that some mine have to close? But trees grow back….or do they? We drove across N Michigan and saw land along the roadway that was old stumps and grass, no trees. The interpretive info stated that the area had been logged way back, but for some reason, trees never grew back.
It’s so sad that the Spruce Research Facility near Marcell, MN, will be closing down. I’ve visited there several times and talked with employees and found how dedicated they were to this experiment, and how much info they have already obtained from it. It’s a real shame not to continue it. Maybe one of the conservation groups could step in and take over and continue the research. There’s a youtube video called “The Marcell Experimental Forest” that does a great job of explaining this research operation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keLBJ5Uq5Xw