Conservationists Urge Public Comment as Trump Moves to Repeal Roadless Rule

From KLCC Studios, this is Oregon on the Record. I'm Michael Dunn. As anyone who's hiked in our local national forest knows, they're thick with evergreens and plants of all shapes and sizes. Stepping just a few feet off trail can seem like entering into a kind of Jurassic world of plant life. And in such forests that were massively logged during the past two centuries or more, their restoration was due in large part in making it harder for logging companies to gain access. Thus was born what is known as the roadless rule. Today on the show, you'll hear from an environmental organization, Defenders of Wildlife, on how the Trump administration is trying to remove that rule and gain major new access for logging. Then, at the end of the show, our reporter tells us about a national conference held locally to try and help the threatened population of gray whales off the coast. Music Sometimes the more simple a policy is, the more effective. For years now, limiting the building of roads in our national forests has helped reduce logging of those same forests. But currently, the Trump administration wants to remove this policy and open up our forests to more and more logging. You'll now hear from an environmental group who is urging the public to help stop this action. Colin Reynolds, who is the senior advisor for the Northwest Field Conservation Program for the organization Defenders of Wildlife. Colin, it's great to talk to you again. Thanks so much for coming on.

Thanks so much for having me, Michael.

Yeah. Let's start with this. Tell folks, what is the roadless area conservation rule?

Yeah, absolutely. I'm so happy to talk to you today about this important issue. The roadless rule is one of our country's most important conservation policies. It was established way back when in 2001, way back when for, not for me, that only seemed a couple of years ago. But, you know, the roadless rule put a nationwide prohibition on timber harvesting, road construction, road reconstruction. on something called inventory roadless areas, uh, which is a small mouthful in national forest, uh, service lands. Um, you know, and so like

what are

within what, you know, what are in these roadless areas, you know, they're basically high quality areas, undisturbed soil, water, air sources of, public drinking water, and just great habitat for a lot of imperiled species. And They are located throughout the country, around 45 million acres of national forest land across the country, with 2 million within Oregon itself.

Okay. And I guess the assumption there is if you have less roads, it's just simply not as easy to harvest the forest. Is that basically it?

Well... I mean, in a sense, roadless areas are just important to wildlife and habitat because in forests, without roads and logging, wildlife can thrive undisturbed by clear cuts, bulldozers, etc. These inventory roadless areas are IRAs, not your retirement account, but IRAs just in the lingo of this type of work. You know, there are some exceptions to the protections like, you know, the Forest Service can go in there and help with wildfire risk

reduction.

You know, you could still recreate in those areas, motorized and non-motorized.