Who’s defending Chequamegon-Nicolet?
4 groups have it in their care
National forest in Wisconsin, managed by the U.S. Forest Service, designated in 1933.
The defenders
Nobody has claimed this fight yet
No group in our directory carries Chequamegon-Nicolet in its work yet. That is not the same as nobody fighting: if you know the group that belongs here, tell us and our editors will look at it.
4 more groups also work this ground
On the ground in Wisconsin
The situation
What’s happening to Chequamegon-Nicolet
GreenLight Wisconsin LLC has asked the Bureau of Land Management for a permit to prospect for hardrock minerals at the Bend deposit, a copper and gold body under the Medford-Park Falls Ranger District in Taylor County. The federal surface belongs to the Chequamegon-Nicolet, the only national forest in Wisconsin, and that gives the Forest Service consent authority. The agency can say no. Prospecting is not a mine, but it is how a mine starts, and northern Wisconsin has spent four decades fighting exactly this sequence in exactly this rock. The Forest Service is taking comments before it decides whether to consent.
- 1933Chequamegon and Nicolet National Forests established
- 2026Forest Service opens comment on the Bend deposit prospecting permit
- 2026Comment period closes
Source: USDA Forest Service · August 1, 2026
No public comment window is open on Chequamegon-Nicolet right now. A call script is ready on the Public Lands Action Network, and the groups above are how the fight gets funded and argued in the meantime.
Your move
How to stand for Chequamegon-Nicolet
Chequamegon-Nicolet has defenders. It needs more.
The work is theirs. The backing is yours.