Skip to content Skip to footer

Trump’s Removal of Protections for Old-Growth Trees Was Illegal, Judge Rules

A Trump appointee rolled back protections in six national forests two days before the administration’s term ended.

Old-growth forest land is pictured in Olympic National Park, Washington, on January 1, 1991.

Two days before he left office, a political appointee for President Donald Trump removed protections from old-growth trees in Oregon and Washington. On Thursday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Hallman ruled that decision was illegal.

Hallman vacated the U.S. Forest Service’s finding that the change would have no impact, and ordered the agency to carry out a full environmental impact statement of the proposal, as The Associated Press reported.

“It’s a shame that we needed a court to tell the Forest Service that they must follow the bedrock environmental laws that have been in place for decades,” Jamie Dawson of Greater Hells Canyon Council said in response to the ruling. “Completing a full public process and taking a hard look at the environmental impacts of their actions is the least they should be doing, especially when considering such an impactful decision.”

The last-minute Trump administration rollback targeted something called the Eastside Screens. These were put in place in the mid-1990s to protect the Pacific Northwest’s old-growth forests after decades of logging had put them at risk, Oregon Wild explained. They prohibited loggers from targeting any trees east of the cascades larger than 21 inches in diameter. The screens protected trees in six national forests in eastern Oregon and Washington, comprising more than seven million acres of public land.

While these trees only make up around 3% of trees in the region, they provide vital habitat for wildlife, and recent research indicates that they store 42% of the forests’ carbon, playing an important role in combating the climate crisis.

“The Forest Service rushed through a politically motivated rule change to log the most ecologically important trees left on our landscape,” Chris Krupp of WildEarth Guardians said in a statement. “Sadly, this is in line with their well-earned reputation for putting logging before the need to address the climate and biodiversity crises.”

WildEarth Guardians and Greater Hells Canyon Council were two of the groups that sued to reverse the rollback on June 14, 2022, along with Oregon Wild, Central Oregon LandWatch, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, and the Sierra Club. The groups also had the support of the Nez Pierce Tribe.

In changing the rule, the Trump administration argued that it was protecting the forests from wildfires.

“We’re looking to create landscapes that withstand and recover more quickly from wildfire, drought, and other disturbances,” Ochoco National Forest supervisor Shane Jeffries told Oregon Public Broadcasting at the time, according to AP. “We’re not looking to take every grand fir and white fir out of the forests.”

However, in the years since the rule change, the Forest Service has proposed logging larger trees on thousands of acres of Oregon forest, including previously untouched forests in Hells Canyon National Recreation Area.

“Individually and collectively, these projects will damage wildlife habitat, contribute to climate change, deplete important carbon stores, and harm other environmental, social, and cultural values at a time when we simply can’t afford to move in the wrong direction,” Oregon Wild wrote.

In their lawsuit, the groups said that the last-minute rule change violated the National Environmental Protection Act, National Forest Management Act, and the Endangered Species Act by failing to take into account its impacts and not allowing the public enough time to comment.

The judge agreed.

“The highly uncertain effects of this project, when considered in light of its massive scope and setting, raise substantial questions about whether this project will have a significant effect on the environment,” Hallman wrote, as AP reported.

The green groups behind the suit are pleased with the ruling, but also think the Biden administration could do more to protect forests, in line with an Earth Day Executive Order to take stock of the nation’s remaining old-growth forests and develop a plan to protect them from wildfires and other threats.

“We call on the Biden administration to stop defending this illegal Trump rule change,” Rob Klavins of Oregon Wild said in a statement.

Help us Prepare for Trump’s Day One

Trump is busy getting ready for Day One of his presidency – but so is Truthout.

Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.

Organizations like Truthout are also being threatened by legislation like HR 9495, the “nonprofit killer bill” that would allow the Treasury Secretary to declare any nonprofit a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip its tax-exempt status without due process. Progressive media like Truthout that has courageously focused on reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza are in the bill’s crosshairs.

As journalists, we have a responsibility to look at hard realities and communicate them to you. We hope that you, like us, can use this information to prepare for what’s to come.

And if you feel uncertain about what to do in the face of a second Trump administration, we invite you to be an indispensable part of Truthout’s preparations.

In addition to covering the widespread onslaught of draconian policy, we’re shoring up our resources for what might come next for progressive media: bad-faith lawsuits from far-right ghouls, legislation that seeks to strip us of our ability to receive tax-deductible donations, and further throttling of our reach on social media platforms owned by Trump’s sycophants.

We’re preparing right now for Trump’s Day One: building a brave coalition of movement media; reaching out to the activists, academics, and thinkers we trust to shine a light on the inner workings of authoritarianism; and planning to use journalism as a tool to equip movements to protect the people, lands, and principles most vulnerable to Trump’s destruction.

We urgently need your help to prepare. As you know, our December fundraiser is our most important of the year and will determine the scale of work we’ll be able to do in 2025. We’ve set two goals: to raise $104,000 in one-time donations and to add 1340 new monthly donors by midnight on December 31.

Today, we’re asking all of our readers to start a monthly donation or make a one-time donation – as a commitment to stand with us on day one of Trump’s presidency, and every day after that, as we produce journalism that combats authoritarianism, censorship, injustice, and misinformation. You’re an essential part of our future – please join the movement by making a tax-deductible donation today.

If you have the means to make a substantial gift, please dig deep during this critical time!

With gratitude and resolve,

Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy