The Trump administration on Monday announced a plan to open 58.5 million acres of undeveloped lands within the National Forest System to road development and construction by repealing the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, known as the \u201cRoadless Rule.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rule was established in 2001 to protect roadless areas from road construction and timber harvesting, as well as to safeguard biodiversity, water resources and recreation.<\/p>\n
Stripping Roadless Rule protections is especially significant for Alaska\u2019s 17-million-acre Tongass National Forest.<\/p>\n
\u201cEliminating the Roadless Rule from the Tongass would remove protections for about half the forest and add almost 190,000 acres to an inventory of lands \u2018suitable\u2019 for timber production,\u201d a press release from Earthjustice said. \u201cMany of these lands are in parts of the forest where previous clear-cut logging decimated vast swaths of older trees, making the remaining intact stands of mature and old-growth trees particularly valuable as fish, bird, and wildlife habitat, and for Indigenous communities and others who rely on the forest for their livelihood, wellbeing, and spiritual and cultural ways of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins called the decades-old rule \u201coutdated.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to the Tongass National Forest \u2014 the largest temperate rainforest in North America \u2014 millions of acres of Idaho\u2019s Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness and Reddish Knob, located in the Shenandoah Mountains of Virginia, would be open to road building, reported The New York Times.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe roadless rule has protected 58 million acres of our wildest national forest lands from clear-cutting for more than a generation,\u201d said Drew Caputo, Earthjustice\u2019s vice president of litigation for lands, wildlife and oceans, as The Washington Post reported. \u201cThe Trump administration now wants to throw these forest protections overboard so the timber industry can make huge money from unrestrained logging.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Roadless Rule dates back to the 1990s, when the United States Forest Service was asked by former President Bill Clinton to come up with methods to protect the increasingly scarce roadless sections of national forests. These lands were considered essential for species who were losing their habitats to large-scale timber harvests and encroaching development.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost Americans value these pristine backcountry areas for their sense of wildness, for the clean water they provide, for the fishing and hunting and wildlife habitat,\u201d said Chris Wood, chief executive of conservation organization Trout Unlimited, as reported by The New York Times.<\/p>\n
Wood was the Forest Service\u2019s senior policy adviser when the Roadless Rule was developed and recalled its wide public support.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think the timber industry wants to get into these areas,\u201d Wood said. \u201cThey\u2019re wildly controversial, and they\u2019re too expensive to access. I believe when they take this to rule making, they will realize how wildly unpopular getting rid of that rule is and how little gain there is to be had from it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Environmental groups vowed to challenge the plan in court, saying it could destroy some of the country\u2019s untouched landscapes.<\/p>\n
Randy Spivak, the Center for Biological Diversity\u2019s public lands policy director, said eliminating the protections would put safe, clean drinking water at risk and invite wildfires.<\/p>\n
For decades, Tongass National Forest has been at the center of the battle over the Roadless Rule. In it are 800-year-old hemlock, cedar and Sitka spruce, many over 800 years old. These ancient trees provide essential habitat for 400 wildlife species, including salmon, bald eagles and the largest concentration of black bears on Earth.<\/p>\n
The cathedral-like stands also store over 10 percent of the carbon dioxide accumulated by all the country\u2019s national forests, the government said, as The New York Times reported.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Trump administration\u2019s disdain for nature knows no bounds,\u201d Spivak said. \u201cThe roadless rule is one of our country\u2019s most important conservation achievements, and we\u2019ll fight like hell to keep these protections in place.\u201d<\/p>\n