“For 25 years, the Roadless Rule has conserved some of our nation's most intact fish and wildlife habitat…”

For 25 years, the Roadless Rule has conserved some of our nation's most intact fish and wildlife habitat, protected clean water, and sustained wildlife habitat and outstanding backcountry hunting and fishing opportunities. Now, roadless does not mean unmanaged. The Rule allows important management activities, including hazardous fuels reduction and habitat restoration, while keeping these lands open to hunting, fishing, grazing and recreation. Claims that wholesale rescission is necessary to address wildfire risk simply are not true. The Roadless Rule already provides flexibility for fuels treatments and other management activities WITHOUT requiring permanent new roads. And recent research found that wildfire ignitions were roughly four times MORE likely to occur near roads than in roadless forests, underscoring that more roads are not necessarily the answer to wildfire risk. Roadless areas are also some of the only public lands that don't come with a permanent maintenance bill attached — the USFS already can't keep up with the 370,000+ miles of roads it has, with a maintenance backlog of over $10.8 billion. Let’s not add more. We, Public Land Owners, know all of this. That’s why in 2001, when the Rule was enacted, more than 99% of the 1.6 million public comments were in support.