Read the comments.

I have a Bachelor of Science in Forest Resources from the University of Georgia, I am a former ATCS with the Federal Aviation Administration, and I have taught mathematics in public high schools from the coast of South Carolina to America’s last frontier in Alaska, and then back to the Appalachian Mountains. I have lived adjacent to the Francis Marion National Forest, the Chugach National Forest, and the Nantahala National Forest. I have been hiking, backpacking, and camping in these forests for 54 years. I am 100% against overturning or modifying the Roadless Rule, a much needed protection for our public lands. I feel this entire process is just another first step toward eventually selling off public lands or services to the highest bidder for development or corporate profit, and it will devastate the majesty of our forests. There is absolutely no practical reason to overturn the Roadless Rule in our beautiful national forest, and those that are pushing this change are either blinded by dollar signs and greed, or just extremely short-sighted and apathetic. Please serve the people of our great nation and act in the public’s best interest.

I oppose the Trump administration’s plans to rescind the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. As a longtime citizen of South Carolina, I fear that this plan to rescind the Rule will lead to unbridled development of the Francis Marion National Forest and surrounding areas. I am also a frequent visitor to many of our other National Forests in the West. These lands belong to the American people—not to a select few seeking to enrich themselves at the expense of wildlife and the public’s right to access and enjoy our natural heritage. Sincerely, Joann Sullivan Charleston, SC

I have been camping, hiking, biking, and bikepacking in the Francis Marion National Forest, the Waccamaw River Heritage Preserve, Lewis Ocean Bay WMA, as well as areas throughout the southeast for over a decade. This proposed change will forever change and lessen my ability to safely access and enjoy those wild areas. Deforestation is already at an alarming rate with little recovery effort. Do not make this change.

I have been camping, hiking, fishing biking and bikepacking in the Francis Marion National Forest, Donnelly WMA and Bonneau Ferry WMA as well as areas throughout the southeast for over a decade. This proposed change will forever change and lessen my ability to safely access and enjoy those wild areas. Deforestation is already at an alarming rate with little recovery effort. Do not make this change

I am writing as a South Carolina resident to strongly oppose rescinding the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. I live in Mount Pleasant, near the Francis Marion National Forest, where rapid development is already transforming the Lowcountry. Francis Marion’s forests, wetlands, and waterways are interconnected with the coastal ecosystem, and its relatively intact public lands help protect wildlife, water quality, and community resilience. We should strengthen these landscapes, not make them easier to fragment. My connection to South Carolina’s public lands began in Greenville, where I moved after leaving New York City. While building a new life there, I became a volunteer water-quality monitor. Through several years of facilitating water-quality testing, I learned how sensitive aquatic ecosystems are and how changes in biodiversity can reveal pollution from agriculture, industry, and roads. I also saw how damage upstream can affect communities and ecosystems far downstream and how difficult, expensive, or impossible restoration can be once watersheds are degraded. That experience taught me that healthy, intact forests are essential infrastructure. They protect clean water, regulate runoff, support biodiversity, and reduce erosion, drainage changes, habitat fragmentation, and pollution pathways created by roads and development. Across South Carolina, communities, agencies, conservation organizations, and residents are investing heavily in watershed protection and restoration because preserving intact ecosystems is far easier than rebuilding them. I support responsible, science-based management of national forests and understand USDA’s concerns about wildfire, insects, disease, and changing forest conditions. However, the existing Roadless Rule already permits measures to address these issues, as well as certain health and safety risks. If specific provisions prevent necessary management, they should be addressed through targeted changes or exceptions, not nationwide rescission. Expanding roads, logging, or development may provide economic benefits in some locations, but those benefits must be weighed against losses to water quality, wildlife habitat, connected forests, recreation, biodiversity, public health, and long-term community resilience. Once fragmented, these landscapes may take generations to recover. From the Francis Marion near my home to the Southern Appalachian forests that first drew me to South Carolina, these lands are part of our natural inheritance and a reason people choose to live here. Rescinding the Roadless Rule would move the state backward as development and environmental pressures intensify. I urge the Forest Service and USDA to keep the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule intact. Address legitimate management concerns narrowly and specifically rather than eliminating nationwide protections. Future generations should inherit forests, waters, and wildlife protected as public trusts, not treated simply as resources waiting to be developed.

To the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Forest Service: My name is Todd Cowley. I am a medically retired U.S. Army sergeant, a Nationally Registered Paramedic, a full-time student, and a father writing from Charleston, South Carolina, near the Francis Marion National Forest. I am submitting this comment in opposition to the proposed rescission of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, and I ask that it be withdrawn in full. 1. The wildfire justification is backward. The Department frames this rescission as wildfire risk management. The published science points in the opposite direction: the overwhelming majority of U.S. wildfires—roughly 84 percent—are human-ignited, and ignition density is concentrated near roads and human access (Balch et al., PNAS, 2017). Roadless designation is not a fire hazard; road construction expands the ignition footprint into backcountry that currently burns less often from human causes. If the Department’s goal is to protect communities from fire, the evidence supports concentrating fuel-treatment and defensible-space work in the wildland-urban interface, where homes actually are—not opening remote, low-access acreage to road construction. As someone who has worked in emergency services, I take fire risk seriously; that is exactly why I object to a policy that increases human access and the resulting risk of ignition while directing resources away from the communities that need protection. 2. The fiscal case fails on its own terms. The Forest Service already carries a multibillion-dollar deferred-maintenance backlog on its existing road system—hundreds of thousands of miles of roads it cannot currently afford to maintain. Constructing new roads into remote, low-productivity timberland at taxpayer expense to access timber of marginal value, while existing infrastructure crumbles, is not stewardship. It is a liability transferred to future taxpayers—my son among them. 3. Water. The national forests are the largest single source of municipal drinking water in the United States, and roadless watersheds consistently produce the highest-quality water precisely because they are unroaded. Road construction is a primary driver of sedimentation and watershed degradation on forest lands. Downstream communities did not consent to trade their water quality for remote logging access. 4. The recreation economy dwarfs the timber value at stake. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, outdoor recreation contributes more than a trillion dollars annually to U.S. GDP, and roadless backcountry—used for hunting, fishing, hiking, and camping—is a core input to that economy. This includes veterans like me, for whom access to intact public land is part of how we come home. The remote stands this rescission would open are, in general, the least commercially valuable timber in the system. The economics do not support the trade. 5. The process owed to the public. The 2001 rule was built on one of the largest public-engagement records in the history of federal rulemaking—hundreds of public meetings and approximately 1.6 million comments—and it has been upheld through years of litigation. Wholesale rescission of a rule with that public mandate, based on a rationale contradicted by ignition science, would be arbitrary and capricious. If specific forests present specific management needs, the appropriate vehicle is the existing state- and forest-level planning process, not nationwide revocation. I am 22 years old. I served, I ran 911 calls, and I am raising my son a short drive from a national forest that I want him to know as I knew the waters and woods of this state growing up. Roadless backcountry is one of the few American inheritances that passes to every child equally, regardless of what their parents earn. I ask the Department to withdraw this proposed rescission, retain the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule in full, and direct its wildfire resources to the wildland-urban interface, where the science shows that lives and homes can actually be saved. Respectfully submitted, Todd F. Cowley Sergeant, U.S. Army (Retired) · NRP, SC Medic Charleston, South Carolina

I support the existing Roadless Area Conservation as is. Repealing it will cause damage that can't be undone. I'm located near the Francis Marion National Forest. This is a smaller forest, however the boundaries of my city (Charleston Metro Area, specifically Mount Pleasant) are already encroaching on its borders. A visualization of this can be seen by visiting the Google Timelapse and searching for 'Awendaw, SC' https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/ The development has consistently followed US 17 north. Without these protections in place the land will likely see development. The forest habitat will slowly be chipped away at and developed parcel by parcel. If it is lost to human development it will never return.