USDA, Bighorn National Forest reexamining roadless areas
BUFFALO — The future of roadless areas in the Bighorn National Forest and other national forest system lands is uncertain after the Trump administration announced that it would rescind the 2001 roadless rule.
U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the move to kill the Clinton-era environmental protection measure at the Western Governors’ Association conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in June.
In line with President Donald Trump’s priorities outlined in executive orders – one that orders the expansion of domestic timber production on federal lands and another that promotes deregulation – Rollins said in a statement the rescission of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule is intended to allow “fire prevention and responsible timber production.”
She characterized the 2001 rule as overly restrictive and detrimental to both forest health and economic development.
“This move opens a new era of consistency and sustainability for our nation’s forests,” she said in a statement. “It is abundantly clear that properly managing our forests preserves them from devastating fires and allows future generations of Americans to enjoy and reap the benefits of this great land.”
Wyoming’s congressional delegation and logging industry advocates have all cheered the proposal.
Of the Bighorn National Forest’s 1.1 million acres, 600,000 acres are managed as inventoried roadless areas. In these areas, road construction and reconstruction and timber harvesting are prohibited.
Rollins’ action will require environmental analysis, compliance with the Endangered Species Act, tribal consultation and coordination with affected states, according to the U.S. Forest Service. So, at this point, how the proposal will impact forest management is uncertain.
National announcement coincides with local planning
A little less than two weeks before Rollins’ pronouncement, Bighorn National Forest Supervisor Andrew Johnson told attendees at a forest steering committee meeting that he planned to seek a technical correction to the forest’s roadless boundaries from Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz.
Johnson said that roughly 50% of the forest’s suitable timber base is located in areas designated as roadless.
“If you look at the footprint of fuels treatments and timber sales and forest health work that we did, for example, in the Buffalo Municipal Watershed, we left a lot of what I would call residual risk on the table,” Johnson said at the June 15 meeting. “There were stands that were roaded stands or accessible stands, but were within inventoried roadless that didn’t fit in one of the existing exceptions to the rule, so we were unable to treat them.”
It’s unclear as of press time how the roadless rule rescission could impact Johnson’s petition. Bighorn National Forest officials did not respond to questions by press time Tuesday.
The corrections would reflect recommendations of the Bighorn Forest Roadless Collaborative, which formed in 2016 to determine how much of the forest would be included in the roadless inventory.
The 2001 rule was not formally enacted after the change in presidential administrations, and it wasn’t accounted for when the local Forest Service office revised its management plan in 2005.
The collaborative, composed of 20 members representing local governments, motorized recreation, wildlife, grazing, timber and invasive vegetation interests, was created to reconcile inconsistencies between the national roadless inventory and the forest plan.
Its recommendations would allow logging in wildland urban interfaces and municipal watersheds, and revise roadless boundaries in accordance with the 2005 forest plan.
Johnson said at the steering committee meeting that with the knowledge that the Trump administration would likely address the roadless rule, the forest wanted the agency to consider recommendations from a citizen collaborative in its future planning.
“... It would be a pretty sizable shift that would free up 25% of our suitable timber base, allowing us to improve forest health, reduce wildfire risks,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that we would plan to move into all 25% of those acres. Some of them either don’t need treatment or are steep ground, things like that, but it would allow us to consider, are there places where we do need to do some forest health work that we have not been able to do up until now.”
Mixed opinions
Rob Davidson, president of the Council for the Bighorn Range, was part of the collaborative. He said in a recent interview that he voted down the recommendations at the time, citing a lack of public involvement.
Now, he said, he is concerned that if the forest is granted the technical correction, elk and other wildlife that benefit from cover and separation from humans would lose habitat.
“I don’t think they can afford to do as much as they talk about – $1,500 to $3,000 an acre to do these thinning, firebreaks and pods,” Davidson said. “The best thing they can do is roll back and try to protect the infrastructure they have – summer cabins, grazing cabins, roads and landslide areas that if they get burned over might mush our roads. These things are helpful and benefit everyone, but to just rake the forest, it isn’t going to work. It isn’t going to stop anything.”
Johnson County has fewer roadless areas than other counties within the forest, Davidson said. A map shows pockets that could be opened up with a technical correction, including Hazelton peak, parts south of Rock Creek, and parts of Doyle and Poison creeks.
At a Johnson County Commission meeting on June 17, commissioners voted to allow Commission Chairman Bill Novotny to write a letter of support for the work of the collaborative.
“We got through the map remediation and the governor shelved the plan,” Novotny said at the meeting. “So this, I think, in support of what President Trump is trying to do with encouraging healthier forests and a vibrant timber industry as well as fire resiliency, is resurrecting that work that was done in trying to get it across the finish line…”
After news of the roadless rule being rescinded nationally, Novotny wrote in an email to the Bulletin that he welcomes the Trump administration proposal to end the roadless rule.
He noted that if a lawsuit stops the action, he will push the Forest Service chief to issue the Bighorn’s technical correction to alter the local forest map while the matter moves through the courts.
“As a member of the Bighorn Forest Collaborative in 2016-17, the work product that was vetted through the public comment process was to administratively correct the discrepancies between RACR and the Forest Plan,” Novotny said in a statement. “I don’t think that effort was in vain, we came up with a durable solution that can withstand legal scrutiny from radical environmentalists.”
This story was published on July 17, 2025.