{"id":617,"date":"2025-06-25T01:09:53","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T21:09:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/the-us-is-stripping-its-forests-of-decades-old-protections\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T01:09:53","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T21:09:53","slug":"the-us-is-stripping-its-forests-of-decades-old-protections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/the-us-is-stripping-its-forests-of-decades-old-protections\/","title":{"rendered":"The US is stripping its forests of decades-old protections"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tThe Tongass National Forest on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska, Friday, July 2, 2021. | Photo: Getty Images\t<\/figcaption><\/p><\/figure>\n

The Trump administration wants to open up tens of millions of acres of national forest to development. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced yesterday that it\u2019s rescinding a landmark rule that prevents road construction and timber harvesting in the last unfragmented stretches of national forest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The USDA says<\/a> the move will boost timber production, while helping officials manage wildfire-prone lands. Conservation groups say this is simply an industry-led land grab that could level pristine forests and increase the risk of wildfire.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake no mistake: this administration will do whatever it takes to sell off the places where we hunt, fish, recreate, and partake in long-standing traditions,\u201d Andy Moderow, senior policy director at Alaska Wilderness League, said in a press statement<\/a>. \u201cToday\u2019s announcement is a clear attempt to sell off public land for industrial-scale clear-cut logging.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cA clear attempt to sell off public land for industrial-scale clear-cut logging\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

In a move that\u2019s likely to face legal challenges, the USDA is tossing out the \u201cRoadless Rule<\/a>\u201d that Bill Clinton enacted back in 2001 and that Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins called \u201coverly restrictive\u201d in a press release<\/a>. It follows an executive order signed by President Trump<\/a> in March to expand timber production. Getting rid of the roadless rule will remove protections from nearly 59 million acres of forest, or roughly 30 percent of National Forest System lands, according to the USDA.<\/p>\n

Some forests will be more affected than others. The rule impacts 92 percent of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, the largest old growth forest still standing in the US. It\u2019s been one of the most contested areas<\/a> since Trump first rolled back roadless rule protections there in 2020 before the Biden administration restored them a few years later.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The USDA also claims that 28 million acres of the land previously protected under the roadless rule are \u201cat high or very high risk of wildfire.\u201d But allowing new roads and logging there won\u2019t lessen wildfire risk \u2014 it\u2019ll do the opposite by raising the risk of forest mismanagement, environmental groups contend.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they say we will open [forests] up for responsible management. I almost laughed out loud when I saw that \u2026\u00a0 It\u2019s the height of irresponsible management to open them up to roads and logging,\u201d says Randi Spivak, public lands policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity. Wildfires are likely to start near roads,<\/a> she explains \u2014 perhaps from a stray cigarette butt or campfire. Loggers also target mature trees<\/a> that tend to be more resilient to fires rather than smaller saplings that are more likely to burn.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s also a very nuanced topic, and it\u2019s completely being exploited by the timber industry and the current administration,\u201d Spivak tells The Verge<\/em>.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an old-school mentality to firefighting that the logging industry has advocated for<\/a> historically to preserve areas where they harvest timber. The old strategy has been to suppress any kind of forest fire<\/a>, which has inadvertently exacerbated blazes in certain forests by allowing dry vegetation to build up into loads of tinder. In parts of the western US, fires are a natural part of the landscape<\/a> that clear out debris that might otherwise turn into fuel for larger infernos.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The timber industry has also promoted the idea that thinning forests will lessen fire risk<\/a>. \u201cThin is just a euphemism for log<\/a>, it sounds nicer, but there\u2019s no difference on the ground,\u201d Spivak says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More modern fire-busting tactics<\/a> emphasize making communities less likely to burn<\/a>. Climate change has led to more widespread wildfires in the western US<\/a>, but tackling that problem is another protective measure that the Trump administration has thrown by the wayside<\/a>. Trees and plants naturally store carbon dioxide, keeping the greenhouse gas from heating our planet. Forests in the US sequester more than 800 million metric tons of carbon each year<\/a>. But they can only keep doing that if they stay intact.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Tongass National Forest on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska, Friday, July 2, 2021. | Photo: Getty Images The Trump […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-classe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}