Laporte ordered that the Clinton-era Roadless Rule, enacted in early 2001, should be put back into effect. That rule gave the federal government the responsibility for keeping roads and development out of some 50 million acres of wilderness lands.

Environmental groups, including some that were plaintiffs in the case against the US Agriculture Department and Forest Service, hailed the decision.

"You have an administration who's trying to overcome the wishes of the American people," said Michael Francis of the Wilderness Society, which was a plaintiff along with 19 other ecology groups and the states of California, Oregon, New Mexico and Washington.

"They've done it in such a way that the American people have had to fight every step of the way to try to protect these roadless areas, and the American people have won this round," Francis said by telephone.

Calls for comment to the Agriculture Department and the Forest Service were not immediately returned.

The Bush rule was put in place in May 2005 and had the effect of allowing logging on national forest lands, said Michael Anderson, a legal analyst with the Wilderness Society.

"It removed the protection from roadbuilding and logging," Anderson said in a telephone interview from Seattle. "It opened the door to development of these wilderness areas."

"Keeping America's remaining wild roadless forests in their current condition maintains an important balance between developing some already roaded forests and preserving special places for American traditions of hunting, fishing, hiking and boating," Sean Cosgrove of the Sierra Club said in a statement.

The Forest Service, an agency of the Agriculture Department, manages some 193 million acres of national forests and grasslands.