This story is produced by Montana Free Press/Mountain Journal in collaboration with Grist as part of the Report for America Local News Initiative.
The Trump administration is proposing to rescind the Roadless Rule, a 25-year-old policy that bars development like road construction and logging on nearly 45 million acres of national forest land, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Tuesday.
In a press release, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said the rule has led to overgrown and diseased forests ripe for deadly wildfires by limiting where the U.S. Forest Service can build roads and manage timber. Rescinding the Roadless Rule, the government said, will prioritize local decision-making over national-scale regulations.
“Today’s long overdue decision will empower states like Montana to pursue proper forest management on federal lands with local communities in mind,” Montana Governor Greg Gianforte said in the release.
In a letter published last fall, more than 30 leading forest science researchers from across the country refuted the administration’s claims. The researchers found that over the last three decades across all Forest Service lands, the density of wildfire ignitions was lowest in wilderness and roadless areas. Their analyses also showed that the highest number of wildfire ignitions came from land in close proximity to roads. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, nearly 85 percent of wildfires are human-caused.
