The Trump administration wants to open precious East Coast forests to logging and mining
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When most people think of national forests, they imagine vast Western landscapes: Alaska, the Rockies, the Pacific Northwest. But millions of acres of federal forests also dot the eastern half of the country. These vast expanses of dynamic ecosystems have long been free of roads, protected by a policy called, aptly, the “roadless rule.”
Adopted in 2001 during the final days of the Clinton administration, the rule for conserving roadless areasas it is officially called, arose from the realization within the U.S. Forest Service that it had built more roads than it could afford to maintain. Many collapsed into waterways, fragmenting habitat and degrading drinking water, alarming even agency scientists. The rule banned road building and logging in nearly 60 million acres of unlogged national forest in 39 states. In the eastern United States, these areas provide rare pockets of ecological and natural relief in a densely developed region.
As the Trump administration moves to dismantle this policy and open these lands to logging and mining, the future of these forests – and the communities that depend on them – is in question.
The Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, says the roadless rule limits its ability to reduce wildfire risks, maintain firefighter access and promote forest health. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins called the policy “absurd obstruction” and “overly restrictive.” She said its repeal would give the Forest Service greater flexibility to protect forests and support rural economies.
But conservationists argue that the administration’s position is not supported by science and ignores the importance of these relatively pristine tracts of forest. Forests play a huge role in sheltering wildlife, supporting recreation and protecting drinking water supplies for millions of people, as well as storing carbon to help combat climate change. “Roadless areas are a finite resource,” said Garrett Rose of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “These are our last best stretches of national forest land.”
Even some former Forest Service leaders oppose repeal. Four former chefs, with 150 years of collective experience, haveasked the administration to preserve the rule. “Removing protection from these precious lands that belong to all citizens, rich and poor, would be an irreparable tragedy,” said Vicki Christiansen, who led the agency from 2018 to 2021.
The policy protects about a third of all national forest land. Ninety-five percent of this area is in ten Western states, where extensive contiguous forests remain the norm. East of the Mississippi River, however, the policy protects smaller, more vulnerable parcels. In Illinois’ Shawnee National Forest, for example, only 4,000 acres are roadless; in the Southeast, the total is about 416,000.
The Trump administration began its repeal efforts last fall with an unusually short public comment period of 21 days — far shorter than the usual deadline, which can be as long as 90 days. However, it attracted more than 220,000 responses, almost everyone opposed itaccording to an analysis by the defense organization Roadless Defense. The most cited concerns relate to wildlife, tourism and water quality.
Still, the administration plans to move forward. The rollback is part of a broader push to expand logging and remake the nation’s second-largest land management agency. Last month, the Trump administration closed 57 of 77 research stations run by the Forest Service nationwide, many of which were studying the impacts of climate change, invasive species and wildfires on forests. The shakeup included moving the agency’s headquarters to Salt Lake City, Utah, from Washington, D.C. and closing nine regional offices.
Since returning to office last year, President Donald Trump has pushed federal agencies to ramp up lumber production, an effort that includes making it easier to use. legal gaps to cut down trees. As the Agriculture Department aims to reverse the roadless rule this year, the debate is moving from Washington to the woods — and to the communities living alongside some of the East’s last protected forests.
— Juanpablo Ramírez-Franco and Katie Myers
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