Read the comments.

October 2, 2026 Director, Ecosystem Management Coordination USDA Forest Service 201 14th Street SW, Mailstop 1108 Washington, DC 20250-1124 Re: Docket FS-2025-0001, Special Areas; Roadless Area Conservation, Draft Environmental Impact Statement. Comment in opposition to rescission; support for Alternative 1 (No Action) Dear Director: I oppose the proposal to rescind the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, and I urge the Forest Service to select Alternative 1, the No Action alternative, in Docket FS-2025-0001. I live in Las Vegas and spend a large part of every year backpacking, hiking and occasionally rappelling in remote country across the western United States. I am a user of the backcountry, not a visitor to its trailheads, and the experience I value most is the one roadless land exists to protect: a place with no motor vehicle noise, no sign of other people, and a view of land that looks as it did centuries ago. That experience is rare and cannot be rebuilt. In Washington I hiked 20 miles into the Olympic wilderness and looked out over untouched country to the horizon. In Idaho's Sawtooth range I hiked deep into old-growth forest and slept under skies with no light pollution. Idaho has its own roadless rule, which this proposal leaves in place, so I raise the Sawtooth only to show what intact backcountry offers. I am asking that the same protection stay in place in the states where it is now at risk. Those states include the places I visit most. In Arizona, the Arizona National Scenic Trail crosses the Mazatzal and Boulder roadless areas of the Tonto National Forest, part of roughly 1.17 million acres of inventoried roadless land in the state. Near my home, Nevada has more than 3 million acres of inventoried roadless land across the Humboldt-Toiyabe and Inyo National Forests and the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area. In Washington, roadless lands on the Olympic National Forest border the park and shelter salmon spawning habitat. In Utah, about 4 million acres of national forest would lose protection. A road, a clear-cut or a mine ends solitude and quiet for every later visitor, and no restoration brings them back. The Draft EIS does not justify that loss, for these reasons. Roads increase wildfire ignitions. Research in Fire Ecology found that fires are about four times more likely to start near a road than in a roadless area, and the agency's own analysis acknowledges that human-caused wildfires could become more frequent if roads open this terrain to vehicles and campfires. The rescission would add ignition sources to remote forest where fire response is slowest. The benefit is small and the cost is large. As reported from the agency's own figures, rescission would raise national timber harvest by only about 5 to 10 percent, while the Forest Service already carries a road maintenance backlog of billions of dollars. Adding roads to the least accessible land in the system adds to a bill the agency cannot pay. The Final EIS should weigh that cost against the recreation economy that depends on undeveloped backcountry. Wildlife and water depend on intact habitat. Roadless areas provide core habitat and connecting corridors, and road construction is a leading source of sediment in streams. The Final EIS should state the effect on threatened and endangered species and on salmon streams, area by area. The public process is too short. The comment period is a fraction of the time the 2001 rule received, and the Draft EIS concedes that full rescission carries the greatest potential for adverse effects on Tribal rights and interests. The 2001 rule has worked for 25 years and still leaves room for fire management and local decisions. I ask the Forest Service to retain it, to select Alternative 1, and to respond in the Final EIS to the specific concerns above. Respectfully, Avid Outdoorsman