About 30% of the United States National Forests – 58.5 million acres of forestland – have been “freed up” after Brooke Rollins, the US Department of Agriculture’s Secretary, today eliminated the “restricted and overly outdated” 2001 “Roadless Rule”, which established protection for wilderness areas in forests. It comes despite research finding that roads can fragment habitats, disrupt ecosystems, and increase erosion and sediment pollution in drinking water, among other harmful outcomes.
“Once again, President Trump is removing absurd obstacles to common-sense management of our natural resources by rescinding the overly restrictive ‘Roadless Rule,'” Rollins said. “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.”
The decision aligns with executive orders by President Trump aimed at expanding mining, logging, and drilling on public lands. These include a controversial Senate proposal to sell off millions of acres of public land as part of Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” In April, Trump issued a directive opening up 112.5 million acres of national forestland to logging, whilst the president has said these actions will remove costly barriers to American business and innovation, help increase domestic timber supplies, and strengthen energy independence.
In many states, especially California, managing forests for wildfire risk reduction has been a political debate. During his first term, Trump famously told California it needed to “rake its forest floors” to prevent worsening blazes. Experts say decades of suppressing fires in California have enabled a buildup of vegetation fueling larger and more frequent conflagrations. However, many experts have warned that clearing brush is not the same as large-scale logging or clear-cutting, which can eliminate fire-suppressing shade and moisture and lead to new growth of more combustible non-native plants and grasses.
We have the trees—Trump’s plan to ‘free up’ forests for timber production.
It comes after Trump signed an executive order in April to “free up” millions of hectares of United States forests for lumber production, coming days after President Trump vowed to impose a 25% tariff on global lumber and other forest products starting April 2nd. The order reversed an order from Joe Biden, who pledged to protect old-growth forests from logging, and came just weeks after Rollins pledged to increase timber output in federally controlled forests.
“We’re so restricted environmentally… We have more forests than almost anybody. We don’t need anybody’s trees. We don’t need trees from Canada or anybody else,” President Trump said.
- To read more about Trump’s policy for US forestry, click here for Wood Central’s special feature on Brooke Rollins’s confirmation as the new Secretary for Agriculture.
