USFS repeals roadless rule protecting National Forest Land

[chumley]

During a meeting of the Western Governors’ Association in New Mexico, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins announced she was rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule, part of a larger effort by President Donald Trump to mitigate wildfires by expand logging and thinning in forests.

Rescinding this rule will remove prohibitions on road construction, reconstruction, and timber harvest on nearly 59 million acres of the National Forest System, allowing for fire prevention and responsible timber production.

https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/pr ... management

In Arizona, this repeal affects mostly the Coronado National Forest, which has the largest inventory of roadless land that will now be eligible to have roads constructed or reconstructed (about 25% of it). Most other national forest land in the state was not included in the roadless rule and was always available for new road construction. (The exceptions previously ineligible and now rescinded being along the Black River, the southern Blue Range, and Chevelon Canyon).

Note: the inventoried roadless areas are separate from designated wilderness areas (which are also roadless, but are unaffected by this change).

A news report with a more Arizona-based view of the announcement was published here:
https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/re ... wildlands/

Environmentalists called the long-standing rule a "hard-won environmental safeguard" which has protected pristine regions of the nation's backcountry, including thousands of species and the watersheds American cities rely on for clean drinking water. The move will open sweeping areas of public lands up to logging and other exploitation, they said.