Trump Orders 'Swaths' of Forests Cut Down

President Trump on Saturday issued an executive order aimed at increasing logging in a big way. He directed federal agencies to look into how they might bypass environmental regulations including endangered species protections in order to boost timber production across 280 million hectares of public lands including national forests, the New York Times reports. The move is intended to decrease US reliance on foreign timber, the Guardian reports.

Experts were warning the move could lead to increased air and water pollution as well as devastate forests and animal habitats. "This Trump executive order is the most blatant attempt in American history by a president to hand over federal public lands to the logging industry," says one wildfire scientist who warns that, yes, fires could increase due to the impact logging has on the microclimate of forests.

"This is a particularly horrific move by Trump to loot our public lands by handing the keys to big business," says the public lands policy director for the Center for Biological Diversity. "Clearcutting these beautiful places will increase fire risk, drive species to extinction, pollute our rivers and streams, and destroy world-class recreation sites." However, the Seattle Times spoke to experts who don't think the executive order can do much to get around federal laws protecting trees. (More President Trump stories.)