The USDA just announced plans to repeal the Roadless Rule, a key protection shielding nearly 60 million acres of National Forest from road-building and logging. Millions of acres across 38 states—including some of our most cherished recreation lands—could be clear-cut, fragmented, and sold off if this rollback proceeds. This is a pivotal moment for our forests, climate, and right to wild places. Now is the time to act…

Yesterday, the US Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, announced that the USDA is rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule. This action comes atop a provision in the Trump administration’s Big Beautiful Bill that will sell off up to 3.3 million acres of national forest and BLM lands should it pass. The Roadless Rule was established by President Bill Clinton and adopted with overwhelming public support to safeguard the natural, undeveloped nature of approximately 58 million acres of national forest.

Currently, about 50 percent of our national forest land is open to drilling, logging, and mining, and 18 percent is protected as designated wilderness. The remaining 30 percent of forests are known as “roadless areas.” The Roadless Rule protects these designated areas from new road construction, road reconstruction, and timber extraction (with some exceptions) and is the most effective conservation rule on the books for protecting mature and old-growth forests.

Repealing the Roadless Rule will allow for road construction and large-scale timber extraction, aka clear-cutting, on millions of acres in 38 states. Large swaths of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, San Bernardino and Sequoia National Forests in California, No Return Wilderness in Idaho, Shenandoah Mountains of Virginia, Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina, and countless others are on the proverbial, and in this case, literal “chopping block.”

These forests provide clean air and water and protect the climate. They offer essential wildlife habitat. And, most germane to the content on this site, these are the places where we recreate. Getting rid of the protections afforded by the Roadless Rule will imperil already-rare wildlife and irreparably harm our climate. It will cause the destruction of incredible landscapes and the degradation of some of our favorite recreational areas. Moreover, it risks decimating the livelihoods of the millions of people who rely on the outdoor recreation economy.

These are our forests, and we need to protect them. Please take the time to contact your Congressional representatives. To identify your representatives, you can go to Congress.gov and search by location. Convenient contact links will be attached to their names. You can also
share your support for the Roadless Area Conservation Act using the tool provided by Outdoor Alliance.

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