FS-2025-0001-457824

I am writing in opposition to the proposal to rescind the Roadless Area Conservation Rule [FS-2025-0001]. For nearly 25 years this rule has protected backcountry habitat, clean headwaters, and quiet recreation areas from industrial road-building and commercial extraction, and it should stay in place. I grew up in Skagit County, Washington, and my family still lives there. The Skagit River, its salmon and steelhead runs, and the farms and towns along it all depend on cold, clean water coming out of the Cascades. A lot of that water starts in roadless country. I now live in the DC area, but I go back often, and hiking and camping in the North Cascades are a big part of why that place still feels like home. These roadless landscapes matter for practical reasons, not just scenic ones. They provide unbroken habitat corridors that wide-ranging species like wolverine and lynx need to move and survive. They protect the headwaters that downstream communities and fisheries rely on. Washington alone has more than 2 million roadless acres across the Cascades, Kettles, Selkirks, Olympics, and Blue Mountains, and these areas also support hunting, fishing, and other backcountry traditions. Rolling back this rule would mean more roads cut into fragile terrain, more fragmented habitat, and worse water quality downstream. It would also raise fire risk rather than lower it: most wildfires are human-caused, and more roads mean more chances for fires to start in these lands. And the Forest Service already can't keep up with the roads it has. I camp off existing forest roads regularly, and I've seen how rough many of them already are. Adding thousands of new miles would only make that backlog worse. Undoing this rule would do lasting damage to places like the ones I grew up around, and to a conservation legacy that benefits all Americans. I urge you to keep the Roadless Area Conservation Rule in place. Sincerely, Anonymous Alexandria, VA 22314