This story was originally published by Carolina Public Press.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced a proposal Tuesday to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, commonly called the Roadless Rule, opening tens of thousands of Inventoried Roadless Areas within the Pisgah and Nantahala national forests to future road development.
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The federal designation restricts road building and logging in undeveloped portions of national forests.
The proposal advances the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s August 2025 notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement to evaluate the effects of rescinding the rule.
Reversing the 25-year-old Roadless Rule is intended to return some land management decisions to local Forest Service officials. Critics of the rule argue that in addition to limiting local control of federal land, it hinders wildfire management, restricts access to timber and complicates the active management of public forests.
“For too long, outdated restrictions have kept tens of millions of forested acres off-limits to the very treatments that improve forest health and reduce wildfire risk to our communities,” said Rollins in a press release. “Today, we filed a proposal to restore authority to local forest managers who know the land best, removing the barriers that have kept them from doing the work the land demands.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said the proposed rescission does not mandate timber cutting or road construction.
A dramatic reversal on Roadless Rule
However, supporters of the Roadless Rule said the designation protects wildlife habitat, safeguards water quality, preserves scenic landscapes and supports the Western North Carolina outdoor recreation economy.
“The Roadless Rule is one of the biggest conservation wins of the modern era and it has reliably delivered the benefits it was designed to year after year,” said Kristin Gendzier, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center.
“The Forest Service’s misguided proposal will clear the way for reckless projects that can permanently scar these spectacular roadless landscapes and do long-lasting harm to countless communities that depend on our national forests for tourism, recreation and clean drinking water.”
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The Pisgah and Nantahala national forests contain nearly 152,000 acres of IRAs within their 1 million acres. Under the Pisgah-Nantahala Forest Plan, IRAs are managed primarily as “backcountry” or under more restrictive designations such as the Appalachian Trail Corridor, Heritage Corridors or designated Wilderness.
The move returns authority over those lands to local Forest Service officials, who will decide whether to allow new roads or timber harvests in areas once largely off-limits.
Will Harlan, Southeast director at the Center for Biological Diversity, told CPP that rolling back the Roadless Rule would be “the largest evisceration of public lands in American history. It’s especially heartbreaking for Western North Carolina, which has some of the highest concentrations of roadless areas in the country. These are some of the wildest places we have left, and the public overwhelmingly supports their protection.”
Gendzier said roughly 99% of comments received by the USDA last fall opposed its rescission.
A public comment period on the proposal and on a draft environmental impact statement is expected to open on Aug. 19 and end on Sept. 21.
Once the comment period closes, the USDA will review comments and decide whether to proceed, modify or withdraw the proposal.
This article first appeared on Carolina Public Press and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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