The Trump administration wants to take an ax to the East’s last great forests

The fight over the roadless rule has long focused on the West, but its repeal could fragment some of the last pristine forests in the eastern United States.

When most people think about national forests, they imagine vast Western landscapes: Alaska, the Rockies, the Pacific Northwest. But millions of acres of federal woodlands dot the eastern half of the country, too. These great swaths of vibrant ecosystems have long been free of roads, protected by a policy called, appropriately enough, the “roadless rule.”

That may soon change.

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