The Trump administration is trying to kill a rule that protects millions of acres of national forests | Charles F Sams III

The bipartisan Roadless Rule is under fire. It’s just one way Trump could make our public lands unrecognizable

Modern roads in the United States will last for decades. And yet the damage they cause in our national forests is immediate.

Since 2001, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule has protected more than 58m acres of national forests from development, barring road construction and timber harvests. The policy came to be with huge bipartisan support; almost 2 million people submitted comments on it, the majority of whom championed the protections.

Charles F Sams III (Cayuse and Walla Walla) was director of the National Park Service from 2021 to 2025. He is now director of Indigenous programs at the Yale Center for Environmental Justice