The U.S. Department of Agriculture, the parent agency of the Forest Service, wants to do away with the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Established in 2001, it stopped road construction and logging on almost 60 million acres of national forest lands.
In Utah, that amounts to over 4 million acres — and according to environmental nonprofit Save Our Canyons, 320,000 acres in the Wasatch Mountains.
On June 23, the USDA issued a news release on rescission plans. It said impediments to responsible forest management will be eliminated by lifting prohibitions on road construction, allowing for timber harvesting, along with fire prevention work.
“For more than two decades, the Roadless Rule has blocked us from responsibly accessing and managing over four million acres of forest,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said in a statement the following day. “It’s prevented us from removing dead and dying timber, fueling catastrophic wildfires across our state. Ending this rule is a critical step toward healthier forests and safer communities.”
Environmental advocates with Save Our Canyons strongly disagree.
“The USDA is trying to take publicly shared lands that we recreate in and depend on for clean water and key wildlife habitat. They want to remove an important piece of protection that’s kept those areas roadless for the last 24 years,” said Senior Policy Associate Doug Tolman.
He said management agreements to mitigate wildfires are already in place, and thousands of acres are treated in Utah without commercial logging.
“We're going to see over 4,000 acres treated in Big Cottonwood Canyon alone, most of them are inventoried roadless areas. We don’t need to rescind the roadless rule to fight wildfires — it would only bring in commercial logging,” Tolman added.
He cited Utah’s biggest wildfire of 2024 as an example of how logging companies can cause wildfires, too.
The Yellow Lake fire burned an estimated 33,000 acres in 2024. KPCW reports it was started by a commercial logging company. And, Tolman said, more roads would mean more people in general would have access to pristine wilderness areas.
“Roads can both be a way to stop fire, but they're also a way to start fire, and we need to be really cautious and careful when we're making big, sweeping changes like this.
Eighty-five percent of wildfires in the United States are caused by humans, according to federal government statistics. And, recent research done by the Wilderness Society shows that wildfire ignition density increases significantly along roadways,” said Tolman.
Public comment on plans to end the Roadless Area Conservation Rule closes Sept. 19.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Pamela McCall: Why do you think the Trump administration is making the move right now to rescind the Roadless Rule?
Doug Tolman: In the big, beautiful bill, we saw an attempt to sell off millions of acres of public land and this is the next edition of that. People who have a lot of power right now are trying to make money off of public lands at the same time as removing vital funding for actual forest protections.
PM: How do you think they’d make money from it?
DT: Instead of treating forests on public land holistically using best practices, the USDA wants to remove all the timber understory and standing timber that can be sold for money. So instead of investing in our forests and forest health, we'd be inviting a commercial industry to do whatever they want without the same type of oversight and cooperative, collaborative fuel treatments that are being done right now.
PM: What’s a specific example of what you think could happen here in Utah if the Roadless Rule is rescinded?
DT:. The proposed mine in Parley’s Canyon is bound on three sides by a protected roadless area. If the Roadless Rule is removed, that mine could move ahead. We could also see an expansion of other existing and new commercial developments, whether it’s logging, mining, ski areas or housing — it would be slow creep.
PM: You’re headed to Washington, D.C., to join other environmental groups to try to fight this. What’s your plan?
DT: In addition to promoting the Central Wasatch National Conservation and Recreation Area Act, which would designate new wilderness here in the Wasatch Mountains, we'll also be advocating for something called the Roadless Area Conservation Act. It’s currently before Congress in both chambers and would codify the current Roadless Area Conservation Rule into law. It would be a great move for all of the forests across the whole country, but it would have significant benefits to Utah, and we're going to lobby on behalf of it.
