Keep the Wilderness Wild!

This from our friends at CSERC:

WHAT'S AT STAKE?

For many decades, the U.S. Forest Service punched new roads every year into wild, unprotected roadless areas on national forest lands. Those roads opened up remote areas to the logging of old growth trees, off-road vehicle use, mining, and drilling for oil and gas development.

After many years of conservation efforts, in 2001 a “Roadless Rule” policy was enacted to prohibit new road construction or development within millions acres of national forest and BLM roadless areas. That Roadless Rule resulted from 1.6 million public comments and tens of thousands of people participating in hundreds of public meetings. The vast majority strongly supported protecting the 2% of America’s lands that qualify as wild, roadless areas.

Now, in order to favor the timber industry and oil and gas companies, the Trump Administration has launched a process to get rid of the Roadless Rule.

On August 29th, the Administration published a notice of intent to abolish the Roadless Rule. The public has only 21 days to submit comments on the proposed policy change.

COMMENTS MUST BE SUBMITTED BY SEPT. 19th!!

Here are examples of reasons to keep the roadless rule as national policy. (Choose one or more of these to submit in your comments.)

1)   Areas without roads have lower risk for destructive wildfires than roaded areas. Far more fires start in national forest areas with roads.

2)   Roadless areas provide healthy watersheds and better protect water quality compared to areas with roads, logging, mining, oil drilling, and other uses.

3)   Roadless areas provide highly popular recreation opportunities such as hunting and fishing, backpacking, hiking, and camping.

4)   Wild, roadless areas are critically important as refugia and habitat for countless at-risk wildlife species.

5)   Roadless areas are some of the last wild remnants of our American landscape heritage that has been so altered and degraded in most places.

6)   Roadless areas are highly important to many Tribal nations as sacred sites.

TAKE THESE STEPS TO SUBMIT YOUR COMMENTS

To submit written comments, write your reasons for keeping the Roadless Rule in place, and mail your comments to:

Director, Ecosystem Management Coordination

201 14th Street SW, Mailstop 1108

Washington, DC 20250-1124

To comment online, go to the official link at:

https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/FS-2025-0001-0001

On the site, look for the “Start typing here” prompt. Type your comments into that field. Enter your personal information and scroll down to click on the SUBMIT button.