“I oppose the Forest Service’s proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The Forest Service…”

I oppose the Forest Service’s proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The Forest Service should strengthen the Roadless Rule, not eliminate it. The current rule provides essential protections but still permits damaging activities in Inventoried Roadless Areas. Rescission would remove national protections from approximately 45 million acres of National Forest lands, exposing intact wildlife habitat and watersheds to additional logging, grazing-related roads, mining, and fragmentation. Research examining 1,500 fires shows that protected (unroaded) forests burn at lower intensity and have lower rates of fire spread when controlled for weather conditions. Roads can increase human-caused fire ignitions and spread invasive plants. The Forest Service should close loopholes that permit logging and the construction of so-called “temporary roads” in roadless areas. Temporary roads can cause lasting harm to wildlife habitat, soils, and watersheds. The 2001 Roadless Rule does not address livestock-grazing impacts, and grazing has continued uninterrupted in Inventoried Roadless Areas. A mapping analysis estimates that between 10 million and 15 million acres of these lands are actively grazed by domestic livestock each year. Livestock can damage streams and springs, remove riparian vegetation, compact soils, spread invasive plants, and displace native wildlife. New road construction would enable harmful livestock grazing to expand. The Forest Service should prioritize voluntary grazing-permit retirement within roadless areas and close vacant allotments and allotments where grazing conflicts with roadless-area values. The existing rule does not prohibit hardrock mining claims under the General Mining Law of 1872, and mineral leasing can continue. USDA should ask the Secretary of the Interior to withdraw Inventoried Roadless Areas from mineral entry under section 204 of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, subject to valid existing rights. The Forest Service should also prohibit new mineral leasing within these lands.More than 9,000 miles of mapped motorized trails cross roadless areas.. Motorized use can compact soils, spread invasive species, disturb wildlife, fragment secure habitat, and increase human-caused wildfire risk. Inventoried Roadless Areas should be nonmotorized by default, with narrow exceptions for valid existing rights, necessary administrative access, and emergencies. The Forest Service should withdraw the proposed rescission and adopt a stronger national rule that protects roadless lands from commercial logging, unnecessary roads, damaging grazing, new mineral development, and harmful motorized use. Be the first to know – and act.