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Rules of the Roadless [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-07-10
“Oregon’s roadless forests are…home to ancient trees and endangered wildlife.” — Erik Fernandez, Wilderness Program Manager, Oregon Wild
When returning from a trip to Olympia, Washington to our home near Salem, Oregon, my wife and I decided to skip the direct route on U.S. 5, and take a back road through the western Washington mountains that would connect us to U.S. 101 near the Pacific coast. From there we would turn south and make our way home.
We anticipated wending our way through mile after mile of towering, magnificent Douglas Firs, following swift, shimmering rivers and, as we crested hills, surveying broad green vistas dotted by occasional sunlit meadows. We might see the occasional deer or even a bear en route. What could be more beautiful than Western Washington’s forests?
Instead, what we saw was mile after mile of large, dead, clearcut stumps. We worked our way west through flatlands that that looked like strange deserts with thousands of weird stump-shaped rock formations cropping up as far as the eye could see, even to the tops of surrounding mountains. Driving for almost two hours, the only signs of life we saw were occasional weeds struggling up between the stumps and a single, desolate trailer with a car parked outside — perhaps home to a timber company employee who guarded the dead trees.
This was a “roaded” area, of course, easily accessible to the logging equipment that had decimated the forest. But Oregon also has its roadless areas, two million acres of them (there are 59 million acres nationally). Protected by the “Roadless Rule,” enacted during President Clinton’s term, the protective status for roadless areas is just below that of designated wilderness areas, which they resemble in their almost pristine condition. Since no roads are allowed there, logging, mining and other extractive industries are not commercially viable, and the areas act as havens for old-growth forests and the complex ecosystems they support.
According to Eric Fernandez of the environmental group Oregon Wild, “Oregon’s roadless forests are…vital sources of clean drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people and support the state’s recreation economy.” They also “provide some of the best salmon, mule deer and elk habitat remaining.”
All was well with these areas until USDA Chief Brooke Rollins announced on June 23, 2025, that the Trump Administration would rescind the Roadless Rule, calling it an “absurd obstacle to common sense management of our natural resources.” Rollins, formerly CEO of the Trump aligned think tank America First Policy Institute, went on to say, “This move opens a new era of consistency and sustainability for our nation’s forests. …properly managing our forests preserves them from devastating fires…”.
Nick Smith, a spokesman for the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry advocacy group, echoed Rollins’ remarks pointing out that “since the rule was imposed (sic), an estimated 36 million acres of National Forests Systems Land have burned.”
That sounds dire, but does not account for how much acreage would have burned without the rule, how much “extra” burned acreage can be attributed to climate change and how much of the burned area is actually within the protected areas rather than outside of them. The resilience old growth forests exhibit when burned is apparently also overlooked.
However, the commercial advantage of harvesting the huge, old growth trees in currently roadless areas, compared to the skimpier second growth variety in “roaded” regions, is probably not overlooked by the timber industry.
“Sustainable” is a great buzzword, easily adopted by industry spokespersons when describing its forest management practices. The problem occurs when timber companies, often owned by distant conglomerates demanding maximum short-term profits, clearcut rather than sustainably cut selected trees to maintain forest health.
In fairness, though, industry advocates do have a point. Forest fires never devastate clearcut areas.
Authors Note: A version of this article appeared previously on my website Firebird Journal.
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