A road to healthier forests
The US Department of Agriculture rescinded the 2001 Roadless Rule last week, a regulation that restricted road building and timber extraction in about 30 percent of land managed by the National Forest System. Judging the pushback from environmentalists, you might think that President Trump was selling Yosemite to a logging company. But the red-tape cutting actually increases public recreation access and opens neglected forests to fire-mitigation projects. Conservationists should be celebrating. On paper, the Roadless Rule preserved America’s most beautiful landscapes. In practice, the regulation proved burdensome and ecologically counterproductive. For instance, some 2,400 Tinglit Native Alaskans reside on islands in the Tongass National Forest.
