WMTW-TV8 • June 24, 2025
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced Monday that the Trump administration plans to rescind the Roadless Rule, which blocked logging on national forest lands for nearly 25 years. The Roadless Rule has affected 30% of national forest lands nationwide, or about 59 million acres. This includes the White Mountain National Forest. Part of that national forest is in western Maine bordered by communities such as Stow, Lovell, Stoneham, Bethel and Gilead. The White Mountain National Forest contains approximately 368,000 acres of inventoried roadless areas. The Roadless Rule has kept logging at bay on about 213,000 roadless acres, but the remaining 155,000 roadless acres are vulnerable to road construction and timber sales because they were identified later in the 2005 Forest Plan. The change marks a sharp turnaround from the Biden administration, which far from opening up more areas to timber harvesting sought to do more to restrict logging and protect old-growth forests.