Proposed repeal of ‘Roadless Rule’ could open Michigan national forests to logging, roadbuilding

The U.S. Forest Service has proposed rescinding the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which currently restricts road-building and logging on nearly 45 million acres nationwide, including about 16,000 acres across Michigan's Huron-Manistee, Hiawatha, and Ottawa national forests. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins says the rule has kept forested acres off-limits to treatments that reduce wildfire risk.

Environmental groups dispute that claim directly: a 2025 Wilderness Society study found the highest wildfire-ignition density near roads, and less than 1% of lower-48 wildfires since 2010 started in roadless areas. The Forest Service's own estimate says permanent roads could be built across 18.2 million acres and temporary roads across another 11.3 million currently under protection.

Advocates note the affected Michigan forests contain some of the region's last mature and old-growth trees and filter headwater streams feeding the Great Lakes, which hold a fifth of the world's fresh surface water. Public comment on the proposal is open through September 21.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.