I am writing to officially oppose the proposal to fully or partially rescind the Roadless Area Conservation Rule.
Currently, I live in Sarasota, Florida, and there are many public lands in the surrounding areas, so this issue is close to home for me. These include the Ocala National Forest, Osceola National Forest, and Apalachicola National. I enjoy hiking and seeing the beautiful wildlife of these forests. It would be of great disappointment to see these wild lands becoming industrialized.
Additionally, the Ocala National Forest’s roadless areas help protect the St. Johns River’s health, while nearby national forests safeguard valuable habitat, water quality, and drinking water. Protecting these forests is extremely crucial in maintaining clean drinking water. The more road construction and human activity that surrounds this river, the more our rivers will suffer from pollutants and contaminants from nearby traffic leading to unsafe drinking water.
I understand that a major focus on the rescinding of the Roadless Rule is focused around wildfire management. However, expert environmentalists around the country firmly argue that industrializing these areas will impose more of a fire risk than just leaving it alone. In fact, wildfires are four times more likely to start in areas with roads than without (Aplet, G.H., Hartger, P. & Dietz, M.S. Three-decade record of contiguous-U.S. national forest wildfires indicates increased density of ignitions near roads. fire ecol 22, 8 (2026). To further back this evidence, many wildland firefighters, such as Shaun Opp, a retired wildland firefighter, oppose the efforts to erase the roadless rule. He says “after years of serving as a firefighter, I know what works and what doesn’t. Rescinding it [the roadless rule] won’t prevent a single fire or save a single home. It will increase fire risk, waste taxpayer money, and make fire prevention and suppression
even harder.”
For the many reasons listed above, fully or partially rescinding the Roadless Rule under Alternatives 2 and 3 of the draft EIS would be a grave mistake. I oppose rescinding the Roadless Rule.