For now, nearly 4.2 million acres of forestland in Colorado may remain protected despite Trump’s announcement.
The Clinton-era roadless rule under threat
The Trump administration has announced plans to revoke a key forest conservation policy, removing protections from nearly 58 million acres of wild national forest. The “Roadless rule“, introduced in 2001 by President Bill Clinton during his final weeks in office, banned road construction and logging in untouched forest areas, preserving almost one-third of the U.S. national forest system. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins called the regulation obsolete and confirmed the start of a formal review.
Trump’s forest protection rollback alarms environmental groups
When the former democratic President decided to shield untouched forest areas just weeks before leaving the White House, the measure was described as the most important step in forest ecosystem protection since Theodore Roosevelt laid the foundation for the national forest system. The rule halted logging, road construction, mining, and drilling across 58 million acres of previously undeveloped land.
Environmental organizations are preparing legal battles, warning that ending the rule would open vast public lands to industrial exploitation. Nearly 30% of the entire U.S. forest system could be affected, including 92% of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, the largest temperate rainforest on Earth.
The Tongass has long been a symbol of the fight over federal forest protections. Its ancient cedars, western hemlocks, and Sitka spruces, some over 800 years old, provide habitat for more than 400 species, including bald eagles, salmon, and one of the densest black bear populations in the country. The forest also plays a major role in climate mitigation, absorbing more than 10% of all CO2 captured by U.S. forests.
From Alaska to Virginia, protections at risk
In 2020, Trump lifted protections for the Tongass, allowing logging across nearly 9 million acres. Although the Biden administration reinstated them in 2023, Trump’s current rollback goes further, targeting roadless protections nationwide. This includes Reddish Knob in Virginia’s Shenandoah Mountains and millions of acres in Idaho’s Frank Church–River of No Return Wilderness.
The rollback follows other moves during Trump’s presidency that undermined forest and environmental protections, including firing thousands of U.S. Forest Service employees, a decision widely criticized for weakening wildfire response capabilities.
Colorado may be spared
Roughly 4.2 million acres of forestland in Colorado could remain protected thanks to a separate agreement with the U.S. Forest Service, negotiated in the early 2000s and formalized in 2012 under the Obama administration. That deal may shield Colorado from Trump’s forest protection rollback, at least for now.
