Hi Friend,
Last month, we told you about the Trump administration’s proposal to rescind the Roadless Rule and expose 45 million acres of national forests to harmful development.
The rescission of the Roadless Rule is one of the biggest threats to our national forests, but, on top of that, we are fighting proposals to clearcut huge areas of old-growth forests outside of protected roadless areas in places like the Tongass National Forest. Last week, we filed a lawsuit to protect 40,000 acres within Alaska’s Tongass National Forest from the South Revilla project. This project would be the largest old-growth logging project in the Tongass in more than a decade.
Logging and roadbuilding authorized by the project would be detrimental to the forest’s ways of life as it would:
* Allow clearcutting in areas that are important for recreation and the food security and customary ways of life of Southeast Alaska tribes and others
* Fragment the forest and create miles of new roads through it
* Harm important wildlife species including salmon, deer, goshawk, wolves, marten, and black bears
Old-growth trees are important in the Tongass for carbon storage, wildlife, hunting, fishing, cultural traditions, and watershed protection. All of that is at risk if the logging proposal moves forward.
The project also includes 70 miles worth of roads to access the trees, adding to an existing road maintenance backlog that costs taxpayers millions of dollars and putting miles of salmon spawning and rearing habitat at risk.If the Roadless Rule is rescinded by the Trump administration, we can expect to see more clearcutting like this, and more roadbuilding, in our wildest forests in roadless areas that are now off limits to logging.
Thanks to your support, we’re suing to protect the world’s largest remaining temperate old-growth rainforest.
Give today, and help us protect our forests, the wild places we love, and our future on Planet Earth. Donate today to fund our lawsuits! [[link removed]] In partnership,
The Team at Earthjustice
P.S. If you’re interested in reading more about the Roadless Rule and what’s at stake from its recission, read our email below.
On Tues, July 19, 2026 at 4:01 PM Earthjustice <
[email protected]> wrote:
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Dear Friend,
The Trump administration just proposed a total rollback of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule — a move that would expose 45 million acres of national forests to clear-cutting and other harmful development.
Over half a million Americans sent public comments to the administration opposing this effort — but the Trump administration is acting in the interest of the logging industry, not the public who overwhelmingly support protecting our forests.
We must fight back — or our forests, the creatures who inhabit them, and all of us will pay the price.
Earthjustice has successfully defended the Roadless Rule for a quarter century, and we are not going to stop now. If the Trump administration finalizes this rule, we will see them in court.
Earthjustice represents our clients free of charge thanks to the generosity of people like you. As the scale of the Trump administration’s attack grows, please consider making a gift to help us fight back in court. [[link removed]] DONATE TODAY [[link removed]] For 25 years, the Roadless Rule has kept our wildest forests intact. The benefits have been incalculable for people, for water, for wildlife, and for the climate.
But since the Roadless Rule protects roadless areas in National Forests from most new roadbuilding and logging, the timber industry has repeatedly tried to destroy this rule.
Earthjustice has fought back every step of the way. For over 20 years and through multiple presidential administrations, Earthjustice and our partners have defended the Roadless Rule.
In 2020, President Trump removed Roadless Rule protections from Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, so Earthjustice sued. Our lawsuit helped convince the Biden administration to reinstate the Roadless Rule in the Tongass.
Now, the Roadless Rule is once again at risk, and its protections affect us all:
* The Roadless Rule protects nearly a quarter of all national forest lands — sheltering imperiled species and preserving clean drinking water for millions of Americans.
* The Trump administration is already weakening the Endangered Species Act. Eliminating the Roadless Rule will fragment wildlife habitats and do even more harm to imperiled species.
* Roads are known to increase wildfire ignition risk, and new science finds that wildfires are four times more likely to start near a road than in a roadless forest.
* In the Tongass National Forest, a temperate rainforest, wildfires are extremely rare. But, eliminating the Roadless Rule would remove critical safeguards against industrial logging and roadbuilding from over 9 million undeveloped acres of the forest that are important for indigenous lifeways, supporting the region’s fisheries, providing habitat for wildlife, and storing carbon.
Thanks to your support, Earthjustice will not back down from this fight.
Give today, and help us protect our forests, the wild places we love, and our future on Planet Earth. [[link removed]] DONATE TODAY [[link removed]] In partnership,
The Team at Earthjustice
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