USDA Moves to Rescind the Roadless Rule, Threatening Protections for Public Lands

USDA Moves to Rescind the Roadless Rule, Threatening Protections for Public Lands

Conservation Northwest / Jul 08, 2025 /

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced plans to rescind the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, a foundational conservation policy that has protected 58.5 million acres of undeveloped national forest lands for nearly 25 years. Commonly known as the Roadless Rule, this safeguard limits roadbuilding and industrial-scale logging in Inventoried Roadless Areas, some of the nation’s most pristine and ecologically important public lands under US Forest Service management. These landscapes provide crucial fish and wildlife habitat, landscape connectivity, and backcountry recreation.  

The following is a statement by Mitch Friedman, Executive Director at Conservation Northwest: 

“The Trump administration is proposing to roll back longstanding policy that protects large areas of wild undeveloped public land. This makes no sense ecologically or economically. Building roads into wild areas costs way more than the logs are worth or it would have happened already. We already have thousands and thousands of decaying roads that are too expensive to maintain, dumping sediment into streams, and fragmenting the landscape. Conservation Northwest will fight to ensure Washington’s 2 million acres of roadless lands in the Cascades, Kettles, Selkirks and Olympics remain intact.”

For additional context and analysis on the implications of this proposed rollback, read our full blog post here