The Northern Forest Center creates bold possibilities that give rise to vibrant Northern Forest communities – places where people thrive in a forested landscape that provides rich opportunities for recreation, economic vitality, and ecological stewardship. We believe in the region’s people and its future, and when it comes to advocacy and public policy, we always prefer to talk about what we are for, rather than what we are against.

In this moment, however, we feel compelled to raise our voice against indiscriminate funding and program cuts by the current Administration that are gutting essential resources for rural communities. Our position is driven not by politics, but by data and people from across the region we serve.

In April, we informally surveyed non-profit organizations and municipalities across the Northern Forest region of Northern Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York to learn how they were being impacted by recent changes in federal policies. By design, we asked neutral questions, not assuming what we’d find, but wanting to learn how the first 100 days of the new administration is impacting the region.

The Center is a regional, multi-sector, non-profit with diverse relationships. We sent a survey to 150 organizations we have worked with in some capacity and received 79 responses – 39% based in Maine, 19% in New Hampshire, 18% in Vermont, and 25% in New York. The sectors most represented were recreation (23 respondents), environment (12), economic development (11), and community-building (9). Sixty percent of these respondents reported that they rely on federal funding for at least 20% of their annual budget.

We recognize that this was not a statistically significant survey. But it gave us a direct view into a rural-specific sample that revealed the significance of canceled contracts, eliminated grant programs, and released federal staff liaisons. It confirmed what we know to be true: rural places, due to their limited resources, rely on federal support for projects their communities simply couldn’t finance alone.

These 79 respondents alone reported a loss of at least $18.1 million in canceled or frozen grants or funds no longer available, citing 20 federal agency programs, primarily the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), US Forest Service (USFS), Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), Department of Energy (DOE), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Economic Development Administration (EDA).

The types of programs and projects cut are just as broad. It’s a sorrowful litany of loss of projects designed to revitalize communities: a youth mentorship program; 200 units of housing in a single small town; conservation easements; community facility repairs; trail construction; water systems; food pantry provisions; downtown tree planting; sewer system upgrades; regional promotion; culverts for flood mitigation. The list goes on – and goes well beyond the organizations in the Center’s direct sphere, as we’ve heard elsewhere about the impact of cuts to social services, education, health care – and on and on.

Organizations and municipalities have been thrown into uncertainty, losing their ability to plan, hire staff, and launch or deepen program initiatives. More than 20 respondents anticipate moderate to significant impacts to program delivery, the number of beneficiaries they’ll be able to serve, and their ability to retain organizational staff in 2025 and beyond. Also evident in responses is the toll on people’s psyches – even groups that hadn’t directly lost funding yet told us, “The negative impact on staff morale due to all the unknowns is highly concerning.” Respondents said the situation is “creating a sense of unease, which saps energy and morale,” and that staff feel rampant “uncertainty and chaos.”

That this was entirely avoidable makes it that much more upsetting. Having managed dozens of federal grants ourselves, we’re well aware that government regulations and processes can sometimes feel onerous and inefficient. A thoughtful, wholesale review of agencies, programs, and systems could reveal many opportunities for improvement. But indiscriminate slashing of staff and programs are only going to worsen economic prospects, setting back the positive momentum many rural places have begun to experience since the pandemic. Reform can be valuable; destruction for its own sake is simply violence.

Ninety-two percent of affected respondents said they would need more non-federal grants and donations to make up for federal support. But philanthropy can’t fill this drastic funding gap. What’s left to do? Northern Forest communities are creative and resilient, but to suggest that these qualities will offset the reduced resources is not only condescending, it also undercuts the more fundamental case – that rural places need game-changing investments in order to secure a diverse and robust economic future, and the federal government is a crucial partner in delivering them.

For our part, the Center remains a steadfast partner to rural communities and to federal agency staff who deliver programs and funding across multiple administrations. And we look forward to contributing to the rebuilding of systems and programs that can most effectively serve rural places and people.

In the meantime, more cuts are on the horizon. For example, the President’s budget proposal would eliminate the Northern Border Regional Commission and the Economic Development Administration, sources of millions of dollars for rural economic development in Northern Forest communities each year. We call on the Administration to reconsider its slashing of rural funding programs and the federal staff who deliver them, and on the members of the Congressional delegation serving this region to be vocal and active in defending these resources.