How often do you marvel at something around you? How often do you stop and stare at this planet? At the sun or rain trickling through trees. At the untracked silence between peaks. The dust turned to gold when the light hits it. The rawest parts of Earth that are so overwhelming, all you can do is stare.
Now ask: how often do we destroy the very places that give us wonder?
Who gave us the power to, instead of being stewards over the lone blue planet, become its excavators?
The Trump administration announced on June 23 that it will repeal the 2001 Roadless Rule, a landmark regulation that has protected 58 million acres of undeveloped national forest land for nearly 25 years. In the words of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, the rule was “absurd” and an obstacle to “common-sense management.” To those in the conservation world, it’s a threat.
So — the proponents have their defense. They cite the inability to manage forest lands for fire risk and economic development. For the record, this goes against what experts argue is good for forest health. But I doubt Trump is thinking of the wellness of trees, and more about the feel of a dollar bill earned through their felling.
Experts argue that, as far as fire goes, repealing the Roadless Rule will do quite the opposite. “It invites wildfires, fragments habitats, and pollutes drinking water,” said Randy Spivak, public lands policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement to the New York Times. “This is one of the most reckless decisions ever made regarding our public lands.”
Vera Smith, director of the national forests and public lands program at the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife, echoed this concern in a statement to the Los Angeles Times: “Secretary Rollins is taking a blowtorch to a landmark rule that shields almost 60 million acres of national forests from the serious impacts roads can have not only on wildlife and their habitats but also on the nation’s drinking water sources.”
The repeal affects national forests across more than 40 states — and more than 4.4 million acres across California alone. That includes parts of the Angeles, Tahoe, Inyo, Shasta-Trinity, and Los Padres national forests. In the Central Coast, Los Padres National Forest holds nearly 1.8 million acres, and of those, approximately 172,000 acres are designated as roadless areas where road construction and reconstruction are prohibited. Another 464,000 acres are roadless but permit road development, making them newly vulnerable under this repeal. Combined, over 600,000 acres of Los Padres land could now face development, logging, and fragmentation.
“President Trump’s rollback of the Roadless Rule is a dangerous handout to the timber industry and a direct attack on some of our wildest public lands,” said Bryant Baker, director of Conservation & Research at Los Padres ForestWatch.
The Tongass in Alaska may be the largest National Forest affected, but Los Padres is no less significant. These rugged canyons and ancient oak groves are home to condors, mountain lions, and plant species found nowhere else on Earth. They’re also part of a vast carbon sink that helps regulate California’s already precarious climate. These areas protect the headwaters of watersheds that provide drinking water for millions.
Roadless protections were originally enacted by President Bill Clinton in 2001 after an unprecedented public comment campaign that showed overwhelming support for keeping forests wild. The protections barred road-building, logging, mining, and drilling in remote parts of national forests that remained untouched by development.
But to the Trump administration, these lands represent untapped economic opportunity.
Now let’s talk about another environmental attack launched by another “representative of the people.”
Senator Mike Lee recently proposed to sell off public lands. The proposal was part of the Republican budget package nicknamed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” — personally I think those three initial words belong to the describing of our Earth and not a bill that attempted to sell off millions of acres of its most stunning landscapes. That incursion halted when the Senate parliamentarian ruled it violated reconciliation rules in place for this budget, but the battle went on, with Lee reintroducing then rescinding the idea.
Together, these efforts represent a coordinated assault on decades of conservation policy, starting with President Benjamin Harrison’s establishment of the national forest system and continuing through Clinton’s Roadless Rule.
Further, Ag Secretary Rollins — at the meeting of the Western Governors’ Association in New Mexico where the repeal was announced — emphasized that this would shift forest management decisions to local authorities. “It will also allow more decisions to be made at the local level, helping land managers make the best decisions to protect people, communities and resources based on their unique local conditions.” Her department claims 28 million acres currently under roadless protections fall in areas with high or very high wildfire risk.
But fire prevention experts and environmental researchers say this framing is misleading. According to Los Padres ForestWatch, more than 371,000 miles of roads already crisscross national forest lands, and the U.S. Forest Service faces a nearly $5 billion maintenance backlog. Human-caused fires are significantly more likely to ignite near roads. Building new ones won’t stop fires — it will invite them.
Cloaked in the language of “common sense management,” the Trump administration, once again, wants to pave paradise. But the stakes are not just environmental. They’re emotional. They’re philosophical.
They are about the relationship we humans have with nature.
Because once a road cuts through an ancient forest, there’s no uncutting it. Once trees are felled, there’s no replanting an 800-year-old grove.
Conservation groups are preparing lawsuits. Legislators are drafting counterbills. And communities across the nation are speaking out.
The forest can’t speak for itself. But we can.
So marvel, yes. But act, too. Because if we don’t, the silence we love in these places will be the silence of absence.
The trees the light used to trickle through will be an empty space with a black tar floor. The mountain pass will be carved through. The pavement will absorb more heat from the sun, further warming a planet that does not need one more degree of warmth.
A graduate of UC Santa Barbara’s environmental sciences department, Ella Heydenfeldt was an Indy news intern last quarter.
