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As a wildlife biologist and spatial analyst, with a background of over a decade working in natural resources, I would like to affirm my objection to the removal of the United States Forest Service Roadless Rule. Roadless areas prevent accidental wildfires caused by anthropogenic activities such as legal or illegal camping, and vehicle presence (dragging chains while towing, hot engines igniting dry vegetation, etc.). Aplet et al. 2026 found that that land within 50 meters of a USFS forest road is up to four times more likely than roadless areas to have fire ignitions, because many fires are caused by human activity. The 2001 Rule itself (66 FR 3254) states that building roads into roadless areas would likely raise the chance of human-caused fires because more people would be present (USDA Forest Service, 2000). Wilderness areas may receive prescribed fire under some circumstances, particularly to reduce fire fuel loads, and roadless areas still receive natural fire caused by lightning. Roads and industrial logging do not prevent wildfire. The Roadless Rule contains exceptions that allow certain activities when necessary for public health and safety, and protecting resources. This includes forest management and hazardous fuels work. Roadless areas help protect wildlife, not only because large tracts of intact habitat protect wildlife populations and clean water. The negative impacts that roads can have on terrestrial invertebrates are well documented, and include mortality from construction, vehicle collisions, changes in behavior such as nesting disturbance, increased human presence, the spread of invasive species and changes to the physical landscape (Trombulak & Frissell 2000). Even just the noise from motors causes disturbance to wildlife populations, reducing individual fitness and reducing the quality of habitat (Ware et al. 2015). In addition, Roadless areas provide human communities with downstream access to clean drinking water, and clean water supports freshwater fish, invertebrates, and amphibians. Building roads increases runoff and sedimentation in mountain streams (Gucinski et al. 2001) and negatively impacts aquatic connectivity for freshwater species (Wofford et al. 2005). The USFS has a notorious backlog of deferred road maintenance for the roughly 370,000 miles of roads that comprise the National Forst System road network. According to USFS’s Fiscal Year 2025, Quarter 2 Deferred Maintenance Needs report, the deferred maintenance value for passenger-vehicle roads is $5.89 billion, and that does not include high-clearance roads. Unmaintained roads and road bridges can lead to landslides and threaten aquatic connectivity and water quality. Why build new roads when USFS consistently fails to maintain the current inventory of roads and road bridges? If roads are built and then not maintained, then any claims about how the recission of the Roadless Rule alleviating management restrictions and improving public access are moot. If no sufficient budget exists for maintaining the current infrastructure, how will USFS plan and execute maintenance of additional road miles and road bridges? As someone who resides in and holds great esteem for the State of Georgia, I must point out that there are very few large tracts of contiguous wilderness left in the Southeastern United States. Unlike the western part of the country, we have no areas of vast, unbroken wilderness. The ability to go out into the wilderness and experience natural areas away from civilization and its sounds is a priceless thing. The protection of our cultural and natural resources in the Southeastern US is priceless. Aplet, G.H., Hartger, P., et al. (2026). Three-decade record of contiguous-U.S. national forest wildfires indicates increased density of ignitions near roads. Fire Ecology. Gucinski, H., Furniss, M.J., Ziemer, R.R., & Brookes, M.H. (2001). Forest roads: a synthesis of scientific information. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-509. USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. doi:10.2737/PNW-GTR-509 USDA Forest Service (2000). Roadless Area Conservation Final Environmental Impact Statement. USDA Forest Service. 2025. Fiscal Year 2025, Quarter 2 Deferred Maintenance Needs. Report to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. Trombulak, S.C., & Frissell, C.A. (2000). Review of ecological effects of roads on terrestrial and aquatic communities. Conservation Biology 14(1): 18–30. doi:10.1046/j.1523-1739.2000.99084.x Ware, H.E., McClure, C.J.W., Carlisle, J.D., & Barber, J.R. (2015). A phantom road experiment reveals traffic noise is an invisible source of habitat degradation. PNAS 112(39): 12105–12109. doi:10.1073/pnas.1504710112. Wofford, J.E.B., Gresswell, R.E., & Banks, M.A. (2005). Influence of barriers to movement on within-watershed genetic variation of coastal cutthroat trout. Ecological Applications 15(2): 628–637.