Drilling will be done on only 167,000 acres of land where 10,000 acres of that are already leased to gas and oil companies.
"We think the decision shows the Forest Service listened to the local community," said Sarah Francisco, leader of the Southern Environmental Law Center's national forests and parks program.
"The vast majority of the forest is protected in this decision."
Fracking is the process of drilling down into earth using a high pressure water mixture directed at the rock to recover gas and oil from shale rock.
Environmental groups are worried that the drilling and its byproducts would pollute mountain streams that provide drinking water for 260,000 people in Shenandoah Valley, as well as a much larger 2.7 million people in Washington and Northern Virginia.
"The risks of fracking are well documented, from water, air and climate pollution to the industrialization of special places," Glen Besa, director of the Sierra Club's Virginia chapter, said in a statement.
"Unfortunately, these risks remain for the existing leases in the forest. While the leases may be low value, they are certainly high risk."
Aside from that, detractors argue that the trucks, wells, and other infrastructures would affect the forest's primary attractions of hiking, hunting, camping, fishing and tourism, as well as the wildlife.
Environmental groups are pleased that at least some balance was struck between development and conservation.
"Natural gas is an enormously versatile fuel that helps power our nation's economy. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing is helping to unlock the tremendous economic and job creation benefits that Virginians, and all Americans, need and want," Virginia Petroleum Council Executive Director Michael Ward said in a statement.
