“bring additional human disturbance into previously intact areas”
“value to future generations”
“recreation, and value to future generations”
The comment
Dear Secretary Rollins,
I strongly oppose the USDA’s proposal to eliminate or weaken the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Rescinding this longstanding protection would threaten some of America’s most intact public lands, waste taxpayer resources, and undermine clean water, wildlife habitat, climate resilience, and recreation.
As a multigenerational Floridian, I have seen what happens when natural landscapes are fragmented by development. Florida’s experience with habitat loss, declining water quality, and increasing climate pressures has taught me that protecting intact ecosystems before they are damaged is far more effective than trying to restore them afterward. Our national forests belong to Floridians, too, and I have a direct stake in their protection.
Roadless forests protect drinking-water supplies, store carbon, provide refuge for threatened and endangered species, and maintain the connected habitat wildlife needs to survive and adapt. Roads fragment habitat, spread invasive species, increase erosion and sedimentation, and bring additional human disturbance into previously intact areas.
I am also deeply concerned by claims that eliminating roadless protections is necessary to reduce wildfire risk. Roads bring vehicles, machinery, campfires, and other potential human ignition sources into remote forests. The existing Roadless Rule already allows appropriate actions to address public safety, ecological restoration, and legitimate forest-management needs.
There is also no justification for saddling taxpayers with more forest roads requiring construction, maintenance, repair, and eventual restoration. Public lands should be managed for the long-term public interest, not fragmented while taxpayers absorb the costs.
Once these landscapes are carved up by roads and development, their roadless character and ecological integrity cannot simply be recreated. I do not support any alternative that rescinds or weakens the Roadless Rule.
Please abandon this proposal and protect America's roadless forests for their clean water, wildlife, biodiversity, climate resilience, recreation, and value to future generations.
Leave the Roadless Rule in place.
Sincerely,
Tina Bailey
Fort Myers, FL 33905-6820
caloosa1928@gmail.com