Trump rescinds protections on 59m acres of national forest to allow logging

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/24/trump-administration-national-forests-logging

Trump rescinds protections on 59m acres of national forest to allow logging

Agriculture secretary to scrap ‘roadless rule’ that protects lands including largest old growth forest in country

Cecilia Nowell
Tue 24 Jun 2025 07.28 EDT

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.

(Approved by republican governors.)

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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.”

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