Repeal of 'Roadless Rule' could upend protections across millions of acres of forest in Oregon and Washington

Nearly two decades of protections for some of the Pacific Northwest’s wildest landscapes may be on the chopping block as federal officials under the Trump administration move to undo the "Roadless Rule" and return parts of the national forest system to the commercial timber base. The rule, created in 2001 at the end of the Clinton administration, restricts road construction and logging on about 60 million acres of national forest nationwide. In Oregon, it covers about 2 million acres; in Washington, about 2.8 million. “There were millions of acres of national forests that were less accessible, more difficult to get to, that had generally not been commercially logged,” said Daniel Rohlf, a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School who specializes in public lands law. “So, the question was what do we do with this resource?” After extensive public input, the Forest Service chose to manage those areas for their roadless qualities and for environmental benefits such as clean water, wildlife habitat and recreation, Rohlf said. Many of the Northwest's most popular destinations fall within those protections, including Lost Lake on Mount Hood, Larch Mountain in the Columbia Gorge, the Oregon Dunes from Florence to Coos Bay and hiking trails in the Cascade Lakes area, according to Steve Pedery, conservation director for the group Oregon Wild.