Ancient Forest Society

Trump Administration Proposes to Eliminate Roadless Area Protections

by Anthony Ambrose

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has proposed rescinding the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, a landmark conservation policy which protects millions of acres of National Forest lands from destructive industrial activities. 

The proposal to scrap the Roadless Rule would open up about 45 million acres of these pristine lands to road building, commercial logging, mining, and other development across 37 states.

Roadless areas are some of the last intact wild lands left in the US, and provide important fish and wildlife habitat, clean water, carbon storage, and recreational opportunities. 

The existing Roadless Rule already allows certain forest health and fuels treatments when they can be accomplished without constructing new roads, including treatments intended to reduce the risk of uncharacteristic high-severity wildfire.

Research also shows that roadless forests generally have lower tree mortality, burn at lower intensity, and have lower rates of fire spread when controlled for weather conditions, suggesting that these landscapes are not inherently unhealthy or in need of intensive intervention.

In fact, if the Roadless Rule is repealed, road construction in roadless areas could lead to more wildfire, as most human-caused wildfires on National Forests start within 1/2 mile of a road.

There are more than 370,000 miles of road on our National Forests, and the Forest Service has a $10.8 billion deferred maintenance backlog, most of which is due to dilapidated roads. We need to maintain and reduce the existing road network, not build more.

The Roadless Rule is not perfect, as it already permits certain damaging activities in roadless areas, like ‘temporary’ road construction, grazing and mining. We believe the Forest Service should strengthen the Roadless Rule, not eliminate it.

The proposed rule is currently open for public comment through October 6, 2026. Please take a moment today to share your thoughts and urge the USDA to keep the Roadless Rule intact, if not strengthened. You can submit a comment directly through the federal rulemaking portal here.

Seeds of Success

by Wendy Baxter

This summer we had a busy field season collecting giant sequoia and sugar pine seeds. The seeds are for Yosemite and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks’ seed banking and reforestation efforts. Each seed collection requires careful coordination with our National Park Service partners and wouldn’t be possible without their funding and support. It’s been amazing to see what our partners are able to achieve, even during challenging times. Our team spent weeks in the field scouting and collecting cones for this vital program. Giant sequoias and sugar pines are facing mounting threats in the form of high severity fires, pathogens, insects and climatic changes. Collecting and storing their seeds is an important insurance policy for the future of these crucial forests.

While our team typically tries to collect giant sequoia seeds early in the year to avoid wildfire season, the cones were not ready to collect at that time in both of our target sites. We collected giant sequoia seeds from 16 trees in Oriole Lake Grove in early July, suffering through a heat wave as we hiked into the remote grove. While camping and working there for six days we marveled at the view of Castle Rocks from the saddle of the grove and wondered about the origin of bedrock basins we stumbled upon in the heart of the grove. Later in the season in September we hiked to Eden Creek Grove, an even more challenging location to reach. Our team scouted multiple routes into the grove earlier in the year to ensure that our team of 12 could safely reach the grove. The route we selected from Case Mountain afforded stunning views of Castle Rocks and Homer’s Brow before descending into the grove. This collection required more time onsite and our team was fortunate enough to spend seven days enjoying this rarely visited grove as we collected cones from 16 trees. While the terrain was steep and unforgiving, each part of the grove felt unexplored and unique.

Sugar pine cones become ripe during a narrow window in late August and early September. Our team spent four days collecting cones in Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks from a total of 39 trees in late August. Another critical part of these collections is testing for white pine blister rust resistance. We have been collaborating with Dr. Joan Dudney and her PhD student Michelle Mohr at UC Santa Barbara, who are identifying potentially resistant trees for our collections. Some of the seeds we collected will be grown into seedlings at the US Forest Service nursery in Placerville and inoculated with blister rust. Seedlings that endure two years of inoculations will be considered resistant and the trees that provided these seeds can be used for future collections.

As our seed collection efforts wrap up for the season, we reflect back on four years of this ongoing program and the resilience it brings to the forests we love. With funding from a variety of sources, in four years we collected a total of 456 bushels of giant sequoia cones from five parks, 22 groves and 228 trees. Over the course of three years in the sugar pines, we collected 347 bushels of cones from 89 trees in two parks. We plan to keep this important program going and you can help! Donate today to support the forests of tomorrow.

Science Spotlight

Our Executive Director, Anthony Ambrose, is a co-author of a new paper recently published in Nature’s Communications Earth & Environment journal. The paper, led by Ben Eppinger at Virginia State University, is titled Deep subsurface water can sustain giant sequoias. By exploring the subsurface of three areas in Mariposa Grove in Yosemite National Park using novel geophysical seismic techniques, the paper reveals that giant sequoias likely have deeper and wider roots than previously thought. You can find the paper here or email our team for a copy.

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Your support helps advance research, expand seed collection efforts, and share knowledge about these ecosystems with a broader audience.