FS-2025-0001-541929

I oppose rescinding the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule and support maintaining its protections nationwide. For me, roadless areas aren't an abstract policy issue. They are places I actually use. I regularly hike, camp, fish, hunt, and explore public lands in Virginia and across the country, and some of my most memorable experiences outdoors have happened in places that remain largely undeveloped. I caught my first native brook trout in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests here in Virginia. Anyone who has chased brook trout in Virginia's mountains knows that catching the fish is only part of the experience. You follow small streams farther into the mountains and away from roads and developed areas. The water gets colder, the forest closes in, and eventually you find these incredible native fish surviving in small, clear headwater streams. Those experiences changed the way I look at these places. Brook trout depend on cold, clean water, and the forests surrounding their streams are part of what keeps those watersheds healthy. Roads, forest fragmentation, sedimentation, and development can change these watersheds in ways that are difficult to undo. Virginia and native brook trout are my personal connection to this issue, but my concern is nationwide. Across the country, roadless areas protect relatively intact watersheds and wildlife habitat while providing opportunities for hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, and backcountry recreation. These concerns are supported by the Forest Service's own research and analysis. The Forest Service has identified effects of forest roads on hydrology, sediment movement, aquatic habitat, habitat fragmentation, and biodiversity. Its Roadless Area Conservation Final Environmental Impact Statement identified potential impacts to aquatic habitat from roads, including excess sediment, changes in water temperature, barriers to passage, and loss of habitat connectivity. That is one of my primary concerns with rescinding a nationwide rule. The Roadless Rule doesn't make these places wilderness or prohibit all forest management. It places meaningful limits on road construction, road reconstruction, and timber harvesting while allowing exceptions when necessary. I believe that is a reasonable balance between multiple-use management and protecting our least-developed national forest lands. Removing those protections raises a basic question: What do we gain by making additional road construction and development possible in places that have remained largely roadless, and does that benefit outweigh the long-term ecological, recreational, and public value those lands already provide? I also want to pass these places and experiences on. I'm planning a camping and brook trout fishing trip with my young nephew. I want to take him into the mountains and hopefully help him catch his first brook trout. But catching a fish isn't really the most important part of that trip. I want to start teaching him about conservation, respecting public lands, and understanding why sometimes the best thing we can do for a place is leave it largely the way we found it. There is a sad irony in taking him into one of these places to teach him about conservation while we are considering removing protections intended to help keep places like it intact. I was fortunate that someone before me valued these places enough to protect them. Because of that, I had the opportunity to walk into a Virginia mountain stream and catch my first native brook trout. I'd like my nephew to have that same opportunity. And I want families across the country to continue having the opportunity to hunt, fish, camp, hike, and experience the roadless public lands that are special to them. That, to me, is what conservation is about. I understand that our national forests are managed for multiple uses and that active forest management is sometimes necessary. Supporting roadless protections doesn't mean opposing responsible forest management. It means recognizing that some of the least-developed places remaining in our national forests deserve a higher threshold before we undertake activities that could permanently change their character. For these reasons, I recommend that the Forest Service not rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule and instead maintain its protections for inventoried roadless areas nationwide. The existing rule allows exceptions for legitimate needs without eliminating nationwide protections. These aren't just lines on a map. They are watersheds, native fish and wildlife habitat, places to hike, hunt, and fish, places to camp with our families, and places where we can teach the next generation why conservation matters. Please keep them that way. Respectfully, Lars Antoniszczak Virginia References: USDA Forest Service, Roadless Area Conservation Final Environmental Impact Statement, Vol. 1; USDA Forest Service, Forest Roads: A Synthesis of Scientific Information (2001).