FS-2025-0001-561530

WHY keep the Roadless Area Conservation Rule: (Roadless rule):1. It needs strengthening to reduce loopholes2. Budget won't maintain all roads we have'3: Wildlife get killed by road obstacles. 4. People need quiet places to walk 5. More forest lands are eligible for protection as roadless It is high time to strengthen the roadless rule. There is no cause for rescission, but rather reinvigoration, tightening, and extension. That is what our American forests need now--those forests standing proudly in the federal domain and belonging to all Americans. There is now a vast and extensive road system in our national forests. Unfortunately, the Forest Service does not have the budget to maintain even HALF of this broad system of forest roads. Many existing roads should be restored and reclaimed and left as pathways for Americans taking walks in our forests. Roads on the other hand,-which all of us use every day and simply take for granted, so ubiquitous are they in our daily lives, prove to be absolute barriers to wildlife movements. And we now face, nationally and globally, a crisis of biodiversity; too many species are rapidly facing extinction, and the more roads our forests have, the faster these threatened species are likely to be pushed into extinction. More and more, many species of wildlife, from small frogs and the like, to large carnivores, need space to roam in, space where they will not risk getting hit by cars. It is not only wildlife who lose when roads impede their movements. As they desperately try to cross, fast-moving vehicles hit them and suffer great damage, up to complete loss of the vehicle and death of the driver and/or passengers. So reducing roads in our forests will increase the safety of Americans using our national forests and reduce lives lost by Americans to needles collisions with critters. The 2001 Roadless rule has been a great success, with forest users-- giving certainty and clarity on where to go, and ensuring that more excessive taxpayer moneys will not be put into carving needless roads into forests that are doing just fine without them. Although highly successful, still the 2001 Roadless Rule has not been protective enough. Its various loopholes allow some road-building, logging, and other industrial development under certain circumstances. In Montana, the U.S. Forest Service authorized nearly 40,000 acres of logging in inventoried roadless areas under the 2001 Roadless Rule--without adequate justification. Activities like this indicate why, rather than repeal the 2001 Roadless Rule, it should be strengthened to eliminate loopholes. Almost everyone loves our majestic, world-class forests, and we do not want them cut into unsustainable fragments by roads thrust through them. Already our present forest road system is MORE than adequate; it is widespread and sufficient. Private forest lands are ample enough throughout our nation to provide all our needed forest products.