Forest Service reverses decades-long phase-out policy for cabins in Wilderness in Alaska

By Katie Bilodeau

In January, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) approved a policy change for the Tongass National Forest that will disproportionately impact Wilderness. Designated Wilderness makes up about one-third of the 17 million-acre Tongass, which spans the coastal panhandle of Alaska. The Tongass is home to the world’s largest remaining old-growth temperate rainforest and has complete wildlife communities from all five species of Pacific salmon up to the apex predators: brown bears, Alexander Archipelago wolves, and bald eagles.

The agency requested public comments on a proposed policy change for special-use permits that are issued for privately owned cabins on national forests in Alaska in spring of 2024. Wilderness Watch and about 5,000 of our members and supporters commented, and the agency approved their policy change in January 2025.

Individual, private cabins are sprinkled across the Tongass and Chugach National Forests. Before Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) in 1980—designating Wilderness and reserving public land and land for Alaska Native Corporations (i.e. Tribes)—individuals built cabins on public land. Some did so with a permit from the USFS (which we call “authorized” cabins for the purpose of this article). Some individuals built their cabins without permission (which are “trespass” cabins for the purpose of this article). The proposed policy change involved the authorized cabins.

Commenting on the policy change that the USFS pitched was difficult, as the agency did not describe the precise consequences of changing nebulous permit codes to other permit codes. The agency vaguely stated:

The Forest Service previously placed some limits on the number of times a permit for certain ANILCA cabins could be reissued or who could be listed on a special use permit. Many cabin owners and their families have long sought a change in the way the Forest Service manages special use permits for their cabins.

Without more information, the USFS proposed policy change—apparently based on the wishes of the cabin owners—made no sense with the minimal details provided to the public. The agency didn’t fully explain what the current restrictions were or why they had been there. The agency also never mentioned Wilderness when soliciting comments—it failed to mention how many cabins were in Wilderness, whether the current policy for authorized cabins was different for cabins in Wilderness, or how the proposed policy might impact Wilderness.

After the comment period closed, Wilderness Watch met with the regional forester and other USFS employees working on the proposed policy. We wanted clarification on what it would actually change, but we walked away from that meeting with more questions than answers. So, we submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, asking for the original and current permits for each of the cabins on the Tongass National Forest. We asked about the Tongass, and not the Chugach, because the Chugach has no designated Wilderness. A pattern clearly emerged from the FOIA response.

The FOIA response clarified that of the 60 private cabins spread across the Tongass National Forest, over half of those are in Wilderness. The language in the permits immediately suggested that the proposal reverses a 40-year policy specifically intended to phase out authorized private cabins in Wilderness. This policy originates out of ANILCA.

When Congress passed ANILCA in 1980, the statute recognized the authorized and trespass cabins, and treated them differently. For the trespass cabins—the ones built without USFS authorization—the owners could apply for and receive a retroactive permit, but the statute limited this permit to the life of the claimant that could be transferred only once to that claimant’s immediate family. These trespass cabins—whether in Wilderness or not—all end after the claimant’s immediate family cease to own and use the cabin.

Congress provided separate direction for authorized cabins. ANILCA states that, “subject to the provisions” of the original permit, ANILCA would not preclude “transferring such a lease or permit to another person at the election or death of the original permittee.” But, some of the original permits were based on provisions that have become obsolete in the decades since ANILCA. For example, on Admiralty Island, the USFS issued at least seven original permits in the mid-1960s through the early 1970s for hunting or trapping cabins “on the premise that it is needed to facilitate harvest of wildlife overpopulations in the vicinity” and specified that permit renewal would be “contingent upon the Forest Supervisor’s determination that there is a continuing need for control of wildlife populations….” Six of these authorized cabins are now in the Kootznoowoo Wilderness on Admiralty Island, and the new policy allows them to remain, even if the wildlife-management paradigm upon which the permit was based has been replaced with better science.

ANILCA also permitted the agencies to end permitting for authorized cabins that were a “direct threat or a significant impairment to the purposes for which a conservation system unit was established.”

Part of the proposed policy would be to allow the authorized cabin owners to request the agency treat their cabin as a trespass cabin and apply the ANILCA section that governs trespass cabins. In Wilderness Watch’s meeting with the Forest Service, agency employees could not satisfactorily answer why the agency had proposed to arbitrarily redefine authorized cabins as trespass cabins. The statute had created these categories based on whether the cabin had been built with permission from the USFS or not; these are factually clear categories. Reviewing the language in the special-use permits, however, answered some of our questions.

The most recent special-use permits for authorized cabins in Wilderness all have a provision that is absent from the permits for their non-Wilderness counterparts. This Wilderness-related provision explicitly prohibits reissuing special-use permits to subsequent cabin owners: “A new authorization shall not be issued to any subsequent person, heir, living trust, corporation, or any person holding an interest in the improvements.” In contrast, the authorized cabins outside of Wilderness have no such restriction, so the agency may issue new permits when a new owner inherits or purchases the cabin. Based on the records we received, the USFS started adding this termination provision to authorized cabins around 1984. So, for 40 years the previous policy had been planning a phase-out of cabins in Wilderness by incorporating termination language into the special-use permits, and the cabin owners agreed to these terms.

Retired USFS employees who worked on Wilderness and special-use permits on the Tongass confirmed to Wilderness Watch what the FOIA response had suggested. After the passage of ANILCA, the USFS decided it would administer authorized cabins in Wilderness differently. These former employees noted there was a one-time family transfer allowed, where many permits could be put in the name of a younger family member. As stated above, Congress allowed agencies to end permits for authorized cabins where they were a “direct threat or a significant impairment to the purposes for which a conservation system unit was established.” ANILCA defined “conservation system unit” to include Wilderness. Based on ANILCA and the agency’s long-standing policy, the USFS had correctly recognized private cabins in Wilderness to impair the purpose of Wilderness, and had been intentionally phasing out these cabins, until this year.

The FOIA response also suggested the possible motivation for a policy change 40 years later. Many of the current cabin owners are the last generation of permit holders for authorized cabins in Wilderness—the one-time family transfer has already been used. Under their current permits, these transferees have agreed that their permit ends when they die or no longer own the cabin. They have agreed the permit will not be reissued—not to an estate, an heir, or a purchaser—and they have agreed that they, their estate, or a new owner must bear the cost associated with removing the structure. These permits are starting to end now, whether it is because the permit holders are passing or because they no longer wish to use the cabin or deal with the liabilities and fees associated with owning it.

Under the previous policy, all of the authorized cabin owners in Wilderness are the last who can hold a permit for their cabin. Passing on the cabin means the new owner would bear the costs of removing the structure. Incredibly, the new policy allows authorized cabin owners to request that the agency treat their cabin as if it were a trespass cabin. While it is legally dubious to ask the USFS to reclassify a cabin under a statutory category to which that cabin factually cannot belong, the end result is that the agency could apply the ANILCA section that allows a one-time transfer to family under that new trespass category. Cabin owners would have a new opportunity to transfer their cabin that they did not have under the old policy.

These wilderness cabins becoming permanent structures in Wilderness will be fully realized one generation into this new policy. Authorized cabin owners may now ask the USFS to consider their cabin as a trespass cabin so they can benefit from a statutorily guaranteed transfer not allowed under the previous policy. The USFS will generate new permit language for the new cabin category. Once the new sunset date finally arrives, however, future cabin owners simply need to point out that their cabins had been mischaracterized—after all, these cabins had a lawful special-use permits in 1980; factually they cannot be trespass cabins. The USFS will reshuffle the cabin back to the proper statutory cabin and generate another new permit, which will have no permit language that prohibits future transfers because in one generation from now, the agency will have long forgotten its 1984-2024 practice phasing out cabins in Wilderness.

The simple hypothetical scenario above is not unrealistic given what we know about human nature. The result is structures—privately owned cabins—will become permanent in Wilderness on the Tongass National Forest. Current permit holders with cabins in Wilderness will have evaded their agreements, where they accepted the terms that they are the last permit holder, a the beneficiary of the one-time family transfer after which the cabin must be dismantled.

Besides the clear potential for negative wilderness impacts, we want to recognize there have been cabin owners—heirs or executors of estates—who have abided by this 40-year-old policy and the terms of their permit, and have removed authorized cabins in Wilderness. Furthermore, there have been USFS employees who have enforced these permit restrictions in Wilderness over the past 40 years. This change in policy not only degrades Wilderness, but it is a thumb in the eye of people who respectfully have followed the rules.

On March 21, 2025, eight former USFS employees–who spent their time managing Wilderness, special-use permits, and recreation in Alaska–sent a letter to then Regional Forester Chad Van Ormer expressing their objection to the new policy. These former agency employees have shared this letter with Wilderness Watch, and have given us permission to share it with you, clarifying that the letter represents the signatories’ personal opinions and are not related to any current work or employment.

Wilderness Watch still had enough unanswered questions to warrant submitting a second Freedom of Information Act request, which we are reviewing now. We have asked for a cabin-tracking report we understand the USFS created, information on decommissioned cabins, and policy records on Tongass cabins from the last two decades to determine what next steps might be available.

Although the details are different, the policy the USFS adopted in January 2025 is not a new story. This is a story of private individuals who accepted a limited privilege in Wilderness, acknowledging it would end when certain conditions occur. Now that the end is in sight, some of these individuals apparently want to enlarge that privilege, as reflected in the agency’s admission prefacing its proposed policy that “Many cabin owners and their families have long sought a change in the way the Forest Service manages special use permits for their cabins.” The USFS has appeared to have opted for changing the rules instead of sticking to their 40-year permit policy restricting permit reissuances, even to the detriment of Wilderness. This move has relieved them from having enforcing a pro-Wilderness policy that probably won’t be popular with some cabin owners. With this new policy, cabins in Wilderness can stay, maybe permanently, and this generation of agency employees just punted their difficult obligation onto their successors.  

Top Photo: Misty Fjords Wilderness by Valeria Cancino/USFS

Katie Bilodeau is Wilderness Watch’s legislative director/policy analyst.