The original proponents of the Roadless Rule were no fools—there are of course built in protections to allow for fire management and Forest Service access roads. The Rule already contains exemptions that allow for the Forest Service to enter protected roadless areas and reduce timber to prevent high levels of wildfire risk.  Indeed, nearly 2 million acres of roadless areas have received “fuel treatments” (a.k.a., a reducing tree density) since 2001.  To support proper maintenance, the Forest Service already has 380,000 miles of forest roads.  Indeed, the Roadless Rule only prohibits roads in 2% of the US and about 30% of the land managed by the Forest Service.

The Forest Service is already well equipped to handle fires.  In fact, adding roads and permitting logging will most likely increase the incidence of fires.

“Without our lungs (the Tongass) we cannot breathe life into our future generations.”

To be sure, the Secretary’s reference to fire prevention most likely refers to the practice of “forest thinning”, which, as you can likely guess, means logging.  Indeed, forest thinning is a practice that has gained media attention and is, unsurprisingly, promoted by logging interests as a response to increased wildfires.  The practice can go by many names—fuel reduction, forest health, ecological restoration, thinning, reforestation—but it really means cutting down trees to be sent to lumber mills.  As Chad Hanson, ecologist and director of the John Muir Project, explains, “the Forest Service began using these terms in the mid-1990s as the public became more aware of the horrific realities of widespread clearcutting of mature and old forests on public lands in the Pacific Northwest, and the northern spotted owl became a household name.”

Don’t be fooled—the strategy is motivated by revenue, not fire prevention.  To address public outrage, the Forest Service, in connection with the logging industry, essentially rebranded to mask their harmful impact.

As Hanson explains, “[t]he primary focus of the agency’s forest management efforts is selling public trees to private logging companies, which generates about $150 million each year. … logging also brings in more than $1 billion in annual Congressional appropriated funds, which generate additional revenue that goes back into the agency’s budget.”

While effective at generating funding, this practice is harmful to fire prevention—in fact, it is likely to increase fires.  According to a study conducted by The Wilderness Society, “[f]rom 1992 to 2024, in all 8 contiguous-US Forest Service regions combined, wildfire-ignition density was lowest in designated wilderness areas (1.7 fires/1,000 hectares), followed closely by that in Inventoried Roadless Areas (1.9 fires/1,000 ha).”  The areas with the most wildfires were within 50 meters of road, followed by regions within 100 meters of a road (both of these would be captured in the 100-meter road buffers category depicted below).

Chart by The Wilderness Society, available at https://www.wilderness.org/sites/default/files/media/file/Summary NFS roads fire paper – 2025.pdf.

This concentration of wildfires follows logically.  Most fires are traceable back to some human involvement, and forests with the most logging typically burn both hotter and faster.  As Hanson explains, “[d]ense, mature forests tend to burn less intensely than those that have been logged because they have higher canopy cover and more shade, which creates a cooler, more moist microclimate. The higher density of trees of all sizes can act as a windbreak, buffering gust-driven flames.”  When a forest is thinned, mature trees are cut down and the forest becomes hotter, drier, and winder.  Dense, cooling forests are essentially transformed into open, flammable savannahs—often with dried out scraps of logged trees left in the wake.

If that were not enough to cut through the façade, the Trump Administration issued an executive order in March 2025 entitled “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production”, which, in no uncertain terms, calls for increased logging.  According to the Administration, “[t]he production of timber, lumber, paper, bioenergy, and other wood products (timber production) is critical to our Nation’s well-being.  … Our inability to fully exploit our domestic timber supply has impeded the creation of jobs and prosperity, contributed to wildfire disasters, degraded fish and wildlife habitats, increased the cost of construction and energy, and threatened our economic security.”

The Executive Order instructs the Forest Service to “issue new or updated guidance regarding tools to facilitate increased timber production and sound forest management, reduce time to deliver timber, and decrease timber supply uncertainty.”  While the Forest Service does not cite the order, it is difficult to believe that rescinding the Roadless Rule is in no way connected to this Administration’s stated objective.

Unfortunately, though financially motivated, this plan isn’t even financially sound.  At the outset, the Forest Service cannot even pay to maintain its existing forest roads: estimations put the existing backlog of road and bridge maintenance requests at $4.4 billion as of 2022.  There is no room in the budget for more roads.  The move would also hurt the outdoor industry, which currently generates $1.2 trillion in economic output.  What’s more, according to the Forest Service’s fiscal report, an estimated 158 million visitors to our national forests contributed $13.7 billion to the economy and helped support 161,000 related jobs between 2018 and 2022.  Without forests to visit, this revenue will disappear.

“This decision lines the pockets of industry executives at the expense of the rest of us who enjoy public lands. It also ignores that protecting nature often means protecting people.”

And though the Administration does not seem particularly interested in climate change mitigation, repealing the Rule also risks our most cost-effective mitigation tool: dense forests.  Similar to their role in wildfires, forests help prevent or minimize seasonal temperature shifts.  Indeed, “[i]nventoried roadless areas alone capture more than 15 million tons of carbon per year in the American West, 43.4 million tons in the Interior West and almost 4 million tons in the East.”

Despite prioritizing profit, repealing the Roadless Rule is shortsighted and will cost the nation dearly—both financially and environmentally.

The Devastating Impact

Rescinding the Roadless Rule will do more than potentially increase fires.  The lands protected under the Rule are home to endangered and imperiled species, such as grizzly bears, wolves, salmon, and song birds.  The lands, a refuge for these species, also serve as crucial safe migration paths for transitory and game species, such as elk, mule deer, and caribou.  The Administration has made clear that protecting species is not a priority, seeking to undermine the Endangered Species Act in other rulemaking, but doing away with the Roadless Rule would expedite species extinction.

The Roadless Rule also helps ensure clean drinking water for millions of Americans.  The headwaters of many major rivers are located on protected lands.  Opening protected lands to logging and roadbuilding would increase nutrient and sediment pollution in rivers, creeks, and streams.  Forests also contribute to the healthy functioning of the hydrological cycle, which contributes to the stability and health of watersheds.

On the human side, Indigenous Tribes’ ancestral homelands and hunting grounds could be under threat of mining, clear cutting, or development without consultation should this change take effect.  Take, for example, the Tongass National Forest.  President of the Ketchikan Indian Community, Gloria Burns, explained to Earthjustice:

“We the people of Kichxáan are the Tongass. You cannot separate us from the land. We depend on Congress to update the outdated and predatory, antiquated laws that allow other countries and outside sources to extract our resource wealth. This is an attack on Tribes and our people who depend on the land to eat. The federal government must act and provide us the safeguards we need or leave our home roadless. We are not willing to risk the destruction of our homelands when no effort has been made to ensure our future is the one our ancestors envisioned for us. Without our lungs (the Tongass) we cannot breathe life into our future generations.”

Indeed, the Tongass have supported the Native Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian people for millennia.  These communities rely on their ancestral homelands for food, medicine, and traditional customs—all of which would be destroyed if logging is given the go-ahead.

The impact of rescinding the Rule is vast: it risks approximately 25,000 miles of trails, 800 miles of whitewater runs, and 8,500 climbing routes—which are not easily replicable nor replaceable.  Indeed, as Ryan Gellert explains, “[t]his decision lines the pockets of industry executives at the expense of the rest of us who enjoy public lands. It also ignores that protecting nature often means protecting people.”

The importance of protected forests isn’t lost on everyone.  On June 11, 2025, Senators Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Representatives Andrea Salinas (D, OR-06) and Yassamin Ansari (D, AZ-03) reintroduced the Roadless Area Conservation Act.  If passed as written, the bill would permanently codify the Roadless Rule into federal law.

More imminently, there is action you can take now to voice your opposition to this destructive rule change.  In compliance with federal law, the Forest Service made the proposed change available for public comment.  The public comment period closes on September 19, 2025.  Nonprofits like Earthjustice provide a sample comment for those interested.