The Trump administration said on Tuesday it plans to rescind the “roadless rule” that has protected old growth forests in the US for 25 years, potentially opening up almost 45m acres of national forests to road construction, drilling and logging.

Conservationists had feared the announcement was coming since last summer after Brooke Rollins, Trump’s secretary of agriculture, targeted a rule brought in by Bill Clinton’s administration, describing it as “overly restrictive” and an “absurd obstacle” to development.

On Tuesday the US Forest Service, an agency inside the Department of Agriculture, formally announced it had filed the proposal to rescind in its entirety the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

Environmental groups immediately criticized the plan.

“[The rule] is the only thing preventing much of our wildest remaining national forests from industrial development. These forests offer critical habitat for wildlife, provide clean, fresh air and water for millions and contain vast swathes of the last remaining old-growth forests in the country,” said Alex Craven, forest campaign manager for the Sierra Club.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) appealed for submissions for the public comment period to “defend our forests from the administration’s chopping block”.

“Their scheme would open up tens of millions of acres of our national forests to destructive logging, drilling and road building – including iconic public lands from California’s Tahoe national forest to Alaska’s Tongass national forest to the Appalachian Trail,” the NRDC said.

The Trump administration said the move would remove obstacles to managing forests and fighting wildfires.

Rollins said: “For too long, outdated restrictions have kept tens of millions of forested acres off-limits to the very treatments that improve forest health and reduce wildfire risk to our communities.

“Today, we filed a proposal to restore authority to local forest managers who know the land best, removing the barriers that have kept them from doing the work the land demands.”

“Active forest management is not an option. It’s essential,” said Tom Schultz, the Forest Service chief. “More than 40% of inventoried roadless areas, primarily in the west, have high or very high wildfire hazard potential. And only 5% of those areas have received hazardous fuels reduction treatments since 2014.”

But Craven of Sierra Club said: “The administration’s attempt to blame the roadless rule for worsening wildfire risk ignores both the facts and the rule itself. Roads generally lead to more ignitions and result in more wildfires – not fewer.

“And, the roadless rule has always allowed for targeted actions to reduce hazardous fuels. What it does not allow is using wildfire as an excuse to open some of America’s most intact public forests to industrial exploitation and new road construction.”