The Trump administration is moving to open millions of acres of national forests to roads and logging, targeting protections that have shielded some of the country's most untouched woodlands for years. The plan would rescind a rule specifically designed to protect old-growth forests and affect roughly 44 million acres of national forest land, according to reporting by The Washington Post and The New York Times.
The move would roll back the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, a policy that has long restricted road construction and logging in large portions of the national forest system. Eliminating the rule would allow the federal government and timber industry to access areas that have been off-limits for commercial development.
The administration's action targets lands that include some of the oldest and densest forest ecosystems in the United States. Old-growth forests take centuries to develop and are home to wildlife species that depend on the complex structure of ancient trees, fallen logs, and dense canopy cover.
The push is part of a broader pattern of the Trump administration revisiting federal land management rules. Earlier actions have affected national monuments, mining regulations, and drilling restrictions on public lands.
The Hill reported that the plan covers 44 million acres, making it one of the largest proposed changes to national forest policy in recent memory. Environmental groups are expected to mount legal challenges to the rollback.
