Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins placed nearly 113 million acres of forest — amounting to 59 percent of all federally managed forests — under an emergency determination aimed at boosting logging and reducing wildfire.

The directive issued by Rollins on Friday encourages forest management, including the harvest of dead or dying trees. Rollins said the move comes as President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March to boost US timber production by 25 percent. The US has also acted to reduce lumber imports from Canada.

The US Forest Service will be directing employees to boost timber output, simplify permitting and reduce regulatory and implementation burdens, the USDA said in a statement. That will include a rollback of National Environmental Policy Act processes, which require federal agencies to consider the potential environmental impacts of proposed actions.

The Sierra Club criticized the directive as the latest move by the administration to hand control of national forests to the logging industry.

“While the order cites wildfire risks as a rationale for the declaration of an emergency, in reality, the order seeks to drastically increase timber production in national forests and removes environmental review of logging projects,” the group said in a statement.

About 79 million acres of National Forest System lands are facing insect infestations and disease, and 67 million acres of lands are under high wildfire risk, according to a memo.

Rollins said in the statement that she is “proud to follow the bold leadership of President Trump by empowering forest managers to reduce constraints and minimize the risks of fire, insects, and disease so that we can strengthen American timber industry.”