Trump administration officials intend to remove protections and open to some development more than 58 million acres of national forests across 40 states, including 2 million acres of national forests in Oregon.
Brooke Rollins, head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture formally announced the proposed termination of a 2001 Forest Service rule known as the “Roadless Rule” in a news release Wednesday, setting off a 21-day public comment period that opens Friday and runs through Sept. 19.
The Roadless Rule prohibits road construction, logging and mining on about 30% of Forest Service managed lands, intending to protect wildlife, animal migration corridors, watersheds and old-growth from human development and the environmental degradation that often follows.
Rollins said that rescinding the rule would remove “burdensome, outdated, one-size-fits-all regulations” and boost economic growth. Trump earlier this year signed two executive orders to increase logging in national forests and other federal lands.
U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz, who previously worked for one of the country’s largest lumber producers in Idaho, said the Roadless Rule has frustrated land managers for years, and served as a barrier to commercial logging, and logging in the name of wildfire prevention, by prohibiting road construction.
“The forests we know today are not the same as the forests of 2001,” he said in a statement. “They are dangerously overstocked and increasingly threatened by drought, mortality, insect-borne disease, and wildfire. It’s time to return land management decisions where they belong — with local Forest Service experts who best understand their forests and communities.”
Research from Oregon State University Professor Chris Dunn, a forest ecologist and wildfire expert, and his colleagues, found most wildfires in Western national forests between 1984 and 2018 started near roads, showing an increased likelihood of wildfires where roads exist, because the number one cause of wildfires is people.
The news Wednesday angered Oregon environmental advocates, who are urging the public to submit comments to the USDA in opposition to the proposed rollback.
“Gutting the Roadless Rule — which has protected our forests for 25 years — would be the single largest rollback of conservation protections in our nation’s history,” said Tracy Stone-Manning, president of the Washington D.C.-based conservation nonprofit Wilderness Society, in a statement. “Americans cherish their public lands and deserve leaders who protect them for future generations, not give them away to corporations that exploit them.”
From the Willamette to the Ochoco National Forest, Oregon groups express urgency
Areas in Oregon protected under the roadless rule include Iron Mountain in the Willamette National Forest, Joseph Canyon in Wallowa County, Tumalo Mountain in central Oregon and Lookout Mountain in the Ochoco National Forest.
“These forests are some of Oregon’s most treasured landscapes, from the flower-studded meadows of Echo Mountain to the headwaters of Tumalo Creek, which provides Bend’s drinking water,” Oregon Wild’s central Oregon field coordinator, Sami Godlove, said in a statement. “Oregonians value these places deeply, and now is the time to raise our voices to ensure they remain protected for future generations.”
Oregon’s U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas, a Democrat representing the state’s 6th Congressional District, said she is outraged by the Trump administration’s attacks on the rule.
In June, Salinas introduced the Roadless Area Conservation Act to make the Roadless Rule a federal law. Nearly 50 House colleagues, including Reps. Maxine Dexter and Suzanne Bonamici, Oregon Democrats, have cosponsored the bill, and she said she is working to get more. Oregon’s two other Democratic U.S. Reps. Janelle Bynum and Val Hoyle, and Oregon’s lone Republican Rep. Cliff Bentz, have not signed on as sponsors.
“These pristine, undeveloped forest lands represent some of our most important tools in the fight against climate change,” Salinas said in a webinar on Tuesday hosted by the Oregon Sierra Club.
Erik Fernandez, the wilderness program manager for Oregon Wild, said eliminating the Roadless Rule would be a disaster for Oregon’s forests and communities.
“Building new roads in these wild places opens the door to invasive species and habitat fragmentation,” he said. “Once these areas are cut apart, we lose the clean water, wildlife, and solitude they provide forever.”
