Agency reveals it’s still “reviewing” implementation ten months after law took effect, despite telling content creator filming was prohibited
When Adam Van Tassell planned a solo canoe trip into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA) this fall, he thought the new EXPLORE Act had finally cleared the way for small-scale creators like him to film without a permit. Van Tassell runs the YouTube channel Crazy Good Fishing, where he shares his videos with 1,300 subscribers.
Instead, a Superior National Forest official told him his planned video would be illegal.
“Really frustrating!” he said. Van Tassell had been wanting to film a trip for a while and was excited after hearing Joe Friedrichs and I talk about permitting reform on the Paddle and Portage Podcast. The act seemed to clear the way for him to share the location he loves.
Even though he received a firm no at the local level, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which oversees the Forest Service, admitted it hasn’t finalized any policy on wilderness filming. “The Forest Service is still reviewing how to implement the EXPLORE Act’s filming provisions in designated wilderness areas. No final determination has been made,” a USDA spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement.
The contradiction shows a gap in federal implementation. Local officials are making definitive calls without national policy guidance, while the Forest Service lags other agencies such as the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which have already implemented rules in line with the new law.
What Is the Law and Why Was It Passed
The EXPLORE Act, signed into law on January 4, 2025, bundles together a mixture of outdoor measures: campground and infrastructure upgrades, support for gateway communities, climbing safety protection, permitting reform, increased outdoor access, new bike trails, and, most relevant for creators such as Van Tassell, filming reforms from the FILM Act.
Luc Boulet, the Manager of Government Affairs for the Professional Photographers of America, one of the organizations that helped get the FILM Act passed, gave me several examples of the government trying to restrict filming and photography on federal lands before the FILM Act passed. In Grand Teton National Park, he said, the park was “implementing an onerous commercial photography permitting scheme, forfeiting 3-5% of the contract amount, CPR certification, insurance, name badges, and prohibiting ‘commercial’ photos in many areas of the national park.” He also gave the example of National Park Service shutting down an Idaho PBS station’s documentary, and Boulet said that the National Park Service “wanted to charge excessive rates for the permit.” These examples were part of the impetus for changing the law.
So, the Professional Photographers of America worked with National Press Photographers Association, the North American Nature Photography Association, which is a part of the American Society of Media Photographers, and Representative Russ Fulcher of Idaho to draft and get the FILM Act passed as part of the EXPLORE Act.
The FILM Act says that no permits are required on federal land for filming, photography, or audio recording activities that involve “fewer than 6 individuals” and meet basic low-impact criteria such as not impeding other visitors or using staging equipment. Additionally, it allows filming regardless of group size when it’s “merely incidental to, or documenting, an activity or event that is allowed or authorized,” such as a permitted overnight canoe trip.
The law also eliminates the old distinctions between commercial and noncommercial creators. Before the EXPLORE Act, a commercial solo filmmaker could be charged hundreds of dollars a day just to film themselves with a GoPro, or when someone like Van Tassell, who makes no money from his videos, could be told “no” because YouTube, where he posts his videos, was considered commercial because it runs advertisements on some videos.
Ultimately, the goal of the FILM Act provisions was to make filming, photography, and audio recording laws uniform across all the federal agencies and federal lands. It also aimed to make impact on the land the determining factor for permissibility.
The Wilderness Loophole
When Van Tassell received his rejection letter via email, it cited one line in the EXPLORE Act, “No provision of this subsection is intended to or shall be construed to conflict with the provisions of the Wilderness Act of 1964.”
The language is vague, and even Congress seemed unsure. Senator Joe Manchin, who brought the act to the Senate floor in the final days of the last Congress, admitted on the floor that they ran out of time to clarify the text before passing the bill. Clarifications were agreed upon, and Boulet said that they are still working to get those clarifications passed.
Until then, the lack of clarity now falls into the lap of the Forest Service on how to interpret it.
It’s worth noting that the Wilderness Act of 1964 does not include any language about filming, photography, or audio recording. It prohibits “commercial enterprise” but allows “commercial services…to the extent necessary for activities which are proper for realizing the recreational or other wilderness purposes of the areas.”
For now, despite what the local office said to Van Tassell, the USDA admits it hasn’t decided how to apply the law in wilderness areas.
The confusion isn’t unique to the Forest Service. On background, a person familiar with the National Park Service permitting said that the National Park Service’s new national guidance treats wilderness areas the same as other public areas, but there’s a variety of rules shown on different unit webhttps://oklahomakayaking.com/s. After I reached out to the National Park Service about the issue, at least one of the webhttps://oklahomakayaking.com/s I mentioned to them was updated.
Mixed Messages
The lack of a Forest Service policy creates mixed messages for creators. Van Tassell said he was told filming was “illegal in and of itself” and not even worth a formal proposal. Yet USDA later confirmed proposals are supposed to be reviewed case by case, and that “compensation alone does not make an activity impermissible.”
The USDA’s response suggests that Van Tassell’s trip should have been evaluated differently, and other creators deserve the same review. If Van Tassell had planned his trip into a wilderness area in a National Park, according to the National Park Service’s policy, he wouldn’t have even needed a permit.
Boulet said, “As for the mixed messages issue, when we were formulating the FILM Act with House and Senate committees, we never envisioned that it would have taken this long for implementation to take place, especially since the new law is so short and easy to interpret even for a layman.” He also said, “Looking back it may have been a good idea to incorporate an implementation date to prevent the predicament we are currently in.”
Already Happening
Meanwhile, small-scale creators are already filming in wilderness areas. Thousands of videos from wilderness areas live on YouTube and social media, and shows have been produced in these landscapes.
The reality is that content is being made. The only thing missing is a Forest Service policy saying it’s okay.
Under the old rules, the consequences for filming without permission include fines, removal of the published films and prohibiting public showings, or being required to get a retroactive permit. However, enforcement appeared inconsistent.
What You Should Do Before Filming
Based on the USDA’s responses, the best advice at this time is for any filming or photography you plan in wilderness areas: get your project evaluated case by case. The agency says proposals are to be reviewed individually and that “compensation alone does not make an activity impermissible.”
When making your case, consider framing your project around the Wilderness Act’s stated purposes. The law says wilderness areas “shall be devoted to the public purposes of recreational, scenic, scientific, educational, conservation, and historical use.” If your content serves educational purposes (teaching wilderness skills or in Van Tassell’s case teaching wilderness fishing skills), conservation goals (inspiring protection of wild places), recreational interests (sharing paddling experiences or if you do filming or photography as a recreational hobby), or historical use (in my case, documenting the 1879 route of Winchell), that might strengthen your proposal.
That doesn’t mean that your project will get a green light, but it does mean that you shouldn’t get an automatic “no.” Until the USDA finalizes its national guidance, a case-by-case review is your best chance at avoiding a confrontation with the Forest Service.
If the USDA and Forest Service follow the National Park Service’s example, all these issues will be a thing of the past for small-scale creators.
What’s Next
Van Tassell filmed his trip and posted it on Crazy Good Fishing. “I think the BWCA, like all federal lands, is public land,” he told me. “As a law-abiding citizen I don’t think they have the right to block me from doing this.”
His decision might be the first test of how the Forest Service handles the EXPLORE Act’s wilderness filming provisions. For now, BWCA paddlers face an odd situation: they could film the same wilderness adventure in a national park without permits but face potential hassles for doing the same in a national forest.
The Forest Service’s delay has created exactly the kind of agency inconsistency the EXPLORE Act was designed to eliminate.
Despite these inconsistencies, Boulet said, “The law is still active as we speak and so guidance from the affected agencies isn’t required to utilize the provisions of the FILM Act.”
The U.S. Forest Service was provided with the final draft of this story for comment, but no response was received by the time of publication. The story will be updated should the agency provide comment.
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