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The Trump administration will rescind protections that prevent logging on nearly a third of national forest lands, including the largest old growth forest in the country, the agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, announced on Monday.
The announcement will be followed by a formal notice rescinding the “roadless rule”, a nickname for the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, in coming weeks, the Associated Press reports. The rule prohibits road building and logging on all national forest land without roads, accounting for about 59m acres (24m hectares) of US national forest land.
Rollins shared the news at a gathering of the Western Governors’ Association in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where hundreds had gathered outside to protest against congressional efforts to sell off large swaths of public lands. There, the interior secretary, Doug Burgum, spoke of a new “era of abundance” on public lands, describing Donald Trump’s efforts to extract more natural resources for domestic manufacturing.
“President Trump is removing absurd obstacles to commonsense management of our natural resources by rescinding the overly restrictive roadless rule,” said Rollins. “This move opens a new era of consistency and sustainability for our nation’s forests. It is abundantly clear that properly managing our forests preserves them from devastating fires and allows future generations of Americans to enjoy and reap the benefits of this great land.”
Republican lawmakers from western states celebrated the announcement while environmental groups expressed dismay.
On social media, the Republican representative for Alaska, Nick Begich, said, “Alaska’s forests are one of our state’s greatest natural assets and the ‘Roadless Rule’ has long stifled responsible forest management, blocked access to critical resources, and halted economic opportunity.”
The Republican congresswoman Harriet Hageman of Wyoming also posted on social media, writing: “This outdated policy has long hindered effective forest management.”
Meanwhile, the Sierra Club’s forest campaign manager, Alex Craven, said in a statement: “Once again, the Trump administration is ignoring the voices of millions of Americans to pursue a corporate giveaway for his billionaire buddies. Stripping our national forests of roadless rule protections will put close to 60m acres of wildlands across the country on the chopping block. That means polluting our clean air and drinking water sources to pad the bottom lines of timber and mining companies – all while pursuing the same kind of mismanagement that increases wildfire severity.”
In its announcement, the US Department of Agriculture cited concerns about increasing wildfire risk as reasoning for constructing roads through national forest land: “Nearly 60% of forest service land in Utah is restricted from road development and is unable to be properly managed for fire risk. In Montana, it is 58%, and in Alaska’s Tongass national forest, the largest in the country, 92% is impacted.”
Journalist Ben Goldfarb, author of the book Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet, questioned that logic on social media, writing: the “vast majority of fires occur near roads. They’re worsening risk.”
The decision also aligns with Trump’s executive order “Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation”, the USDA said, to “get rid of overcomplicated, burdensome barriers that hamper American business and innovation.”
During the latter part of Trump’s first term, the federal government lifted restrictions on logging and road-building in the Tongass, something the Biden administration later reversed.
Associated Press contributed reporting
