Trump Wants to Open 18 Million Hectares of Virgin Forest to Logging

Nearly 18 million hectares of virgin forest in the United States could be opened up to logging, according to an amendment to a law proposed Tuesday by the Trump administration. The reason cited by the administration? “Reducing the risk of wildfires.”

The Trump administration is proposing to repeal a 2001 law that protects unmanaged public forests. This is the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, adopted during Bill Clinton's presidency. This law prohibits all construction in unmanaged public forests and grasslands.

More than 95 percent of “roadless areas” are located in ten different states, including Alaska, Arizona, Utah, and Wyoming. Only the old-growth forests in Colorado and Idaho would be exempt from the repeal of the law, due to specific local legislation.

The Trump administration has taken an openly climate-skeptic stance, even as global warming is making wildfires more frequent and severe—particularly by creating conditions of drought, as Agence France-Presse points out.

According to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, the “No-Road Policy” has prevented forestry services from carrying out work intended to limit fires. “Across the country, we have seen preventable situations—overly dense forests, insect infestations, and diseases—turn healthy landscapes into veritable powder kegs,” the secretary said in a statement.

“For too long, outdated restrictions have prevented the application of treatments—across millions of hectares of forest—that improve forest health and reduce the risk of wildfires,” she added.

The amendment to the law has sparked a wave of outrage among environmental advocates. Legal challenges are expected.

“Donald Trump is pushing to implement the largest dismantling of public-domain regulatory protections in U.S. history,” said Randi Spivak, a director at the U.S. NGO Center for Biological Diversity.

According to the organization, such a measure would disrupt major ecosystems, such as the northern Rocky Mountains—which serve as vital “corridors” for grizzly bears and bobcats—and the Tongass, the country's largest forest located in Alaska, with its century-old spruce trees and salmon-filled rivers.

The public health argument put forward by the Trump administration is contested by environmental advocacy groups. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, most wildfires are caused by humans and start near roads.

A study published in the scientific journal Fire Ecology supports this view, indicating that the risk of wildfire is nearly four times higher on land located within 50 meters of a road.