Trump administration to rescind rule protecting old-growth forests

Photo: Aerial view of clear cut logging in the state of Washington – May 1, 2014. Photo credit: Sam Beebe via Flickr. CC BY 2.0. Article by Mark Oliver. The Guardian – August 18, 2026.

The Trump administration said on Tuesday it plans to rescind the “roadless rule” that has protected old-growth forests in the US for 25 years, potentially opening up almost 45m acres of national forests to road construction, drilling and logging. Conservationists had feared the announcement was coming since last summer after Brooke Rollins, Trump’s secretary of agriculture, targeted a rule brought in by Bill Clinton’s administration, describing it as “overly restrictive” and an “absurd obstacle” to development. On Tuesday the US Forest Service, an agency inside the Department of Agriculture, formally announced it had filed the proposal to rescind in its entirety the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. […]

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