Roadless Rule in Flux

The future of land management is uncertain amidst sweeping changes in the National Forest Service

By Ren Brabenec | May 9, 2026

The Great Lakes State is also the Great Forest State, because, according to the Environment Research & Policy Center, Michigan has more national forest land than any state east of the Mississippi River at a whopping 3 million acres.

Yet, on June 23, 2025, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that the Trump Administration planned to roll back protections for at least 45 million acres of forestland across the country by rescinding a 25-year-old policy called the “Roadless Rule.”

What is the Roadless Rule?

Implemented in 2001 by the U.S. Forest Service, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule designated about 60 million acres of national forest land as “inventoried roadless areas.” These areas were protected by the federal government imposing significant limitations on the construction of new roads into and through the forests for the purposes of logging and mining operations.

The Roadless Rule came about at the turn of the century as a result of growing public sentiment that some national forests needed to be kept fully undeveloped and wild. National forests in decades past had experienced significant wildlife habitat loss and degradation of clean water due to mining, industrial logging, and clear-cutting. By 1990, 380,000 miles of roads spanned the National Forest System, most of it built with federal subsidies to support timber production.

According to Pew Research, about 77 percent of likely voters believe that “conserving national forests and other roadless lands for current and future generations is paramount,” and only 11 percent believe that “roadless areas should be made available for timber harvesting and mining.”

If the rule is repealed, about 16,000 acres of national forest land in Michigan could be stripped of roadless protections.

From the Desk of Forest Service Employees at Huron-Manistee National Forest

As alarming as many found the Administration’s 2025 announcement, staffers at National Forest Service offices across Michigan attempted to offer a balanced perspective on the proposed shift.

First, we checked in with Eric Adams, Public Affairs Staff Officer for the Forest Service stationed at Huron-Manistee National Forest.

“The intent behind the proposed rescission of the national Roadless Rule is to remove a blanket national requirement and return decision-making for the management of inventoried roadless areas to the local decision-making process as part of individual national forest and grassland plans,” Adams says. “Forest and grassland plan development includes robust public involvement and focus on land management decisions at the appropriate scale.”

Adams also emphasizes that the majority of inventoried roadless areas are located in the western U.S. and Alaska, though he did contend that a portion of the forests he works in could be affected by a rescission.

“Within Michigan, inventoried roadless areas are roughly 0.5 percent of the 2.9 million acres of National Forest System lands,” he says. “For example, in the Huron-Manistee National Forest, designated roadless areas are primarily within the 3,915-acre Bear Swamp Roadless Area in Mason and Lake Counties.”

Huron-Manistee National Forest welcomes 1.8 million visitors annually, and it generates about $96.9 million in regional economic activity. Rich in mature hardwood and conifer swamps, the Bear Swamp Roadless Area provides critical habitat for endangered and threatened species like the rusty-patched bumblebee, eastern Massasauga rattlesnake, northern long-eared bat, least bittern, and wood turtles.

From the Desk of Forest Service Rangers at Hiawatha National Forest

Above the bridge in the Upper Peninsula, the 900,000-acre Hiawatha National Forest is a gem of the region. In some places, it spans the full vertical width of the peninsula, from the southern shore of Lake Superior to the northern shore of Lake Michigan. We spoke with Chelsea Kallery, a Forest Service Public Affairs Officer working out of Hiawatha’s Forest Service headquarters.

“The 2001 Roadless Rule is a national level prohibition on road construction, reconstruction, and timber harvest in designated inventoried roadless areas, with limited exceptions,” she explains. “The proposed rule-making would not compel or authorize immediate ground-disturbing activities. Any future actions would continue to follow the forest’s plans, comply with federal laws, and include environmental review. Forest managers will continue to work with Tribes, states, and local communities to address local conditions while sustaining forest health and benefits for the public.”

We asked Kallery to define which areas of Hiawatha are currently protected under the Roadless Rule, and she referred us to the 7,432-acre Fibre Roadless Area west of Rudyard, among other sites. The Rudyard Roadless area is a short drive northwest from the Mackinac Bridge and is popular for fall deer hunting and winter cross-country skiing.

The Fibre Roadless Area protects mature conifer swamps, cedar forests, and streams, including the North Branch Pine River. This roadless area provides habitat for endangered and threatened species like the gray wolf, piping plover, and canada lynx.

At least 1.5 million people recreate in Hiawatha National Forest each year, generating about $35.4 million in economic activity.

Why Rescind the Rule? Why Not?

When speaking with Forest Service representatives, we asked for explanations of why the administration was seeking to remove the Roadless Rule and whether there might be any downsides to a rescission.

Speaking on background, our sources told us that the administration believes the rule produces needless obstacles to land management, and that it holds sections of national forest land to a federal conservation standard that doesn’t always make sense on a state-by-state basis, i.e., a standard of virtually universal protection from logging, mining, and the establishment of roads.

Critics of rescission argue that some areas of the national forests should be left un-extracted so that threatened and endangered species can have a place to live.

The administration has also proposed that rescinding the rule and building roads into previously roadless areas would help reduce wildfires by facilitating better forest management. Yet our sources did contend that wildfires occur more often in forested areas with roads than in those without, typically as a result of human activity along or near roads.

The National Forest Service employees we spoke with declined to comment when asked what the argument was for keeping the Roadless Rule in place.

Pew Research, which conducted the polling cited earlier in this story, identified multiple benefits for keeping the Roadless Rule. For example, many animal species depend on large, intact blocks of habitat for their survival and can be disturbed by human presence; hence, the need for large wilderness areas untouched by roads or logging. According to Pew, approximately 25 percent of animal species and 13 percent of plant species categorized as endangered in the U.S. have habitat within roadless areas.

Next Steps

The Forest Service held an open comment period in late August and September of 2025. However, it was criticized for allowing only 21 days for the comment period, whereas the federal standard is 60.

Of 625,737 comments submitted during that period, about 619,000 voiced opposition to the proposed rescission. The rescission program is currently moving toward a draft environmental impact statement (EIS), which was supposed to be published in March of 2026 and allow for another comment period.

That EIS has not yet been made available, though a final decision on rescission is still expected in late 2026, pending legal challenges by conservation organizations.