Not everything on earth is something to exploit.
I'm writing to urge the federal government to STOP the Roadless Rule Repeal.
The Trump administration, via the USDA, in its ignorantly reckless desire to rip up the last untouched 60 million acres of national forest, should not be allowed to destroy a pristine, treasured public trust which belongs to the American public, not extractive industry.
On a local level, as a Wisconsin resident, this issue is significant to me as someone who understands and values the importance of biodiversity and has enjoyed many hours under the stars, camping and hiking the woods of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. Early one summer, as a young woman, I experienced the Northwoods in a manner that truly opened my eyes to the Natural World around me. I was exposed firsthand to a myriad of flora and faunae because "nursery season" was in full swing. As my partner and I walked the trails, we crossed paths with a doe nursing her fawn, raccoon youngsters peeking at us from tree hollows, and a family of sandhill cranes escorting their colts through the dappled shade of the woods. To see so many species of wildlife with their young and witness the crush of trilliums, wild lady's slipper blooms, and Virginia bluebells briefly flowering on the forest floor, opened my eyes to the beauty and abundance of life in those woods, and created not only a sense of appreciation but an understanding of phenology and life cycles in wildlife. Ultimately, my time in Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest cultivated a profound admiration and respect for the Natural World. Those remarkable experiences in the woods stay with me to this day. I cannot fathom the idea that thousands of forest acres will be breached by road disruptions, that terrestrial wildlife will lose their lives to car accidents and crucial habitat for many endangered species will become degraded and/or disappear. The untouched forest will be forever altered if the Roadless Rule is repealed. This must never happen.
Roughly 69,000 inventoried acres of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest -the last stretch of northern Wisconsin that has never had a road cut through it, would be permanently decimated if it's opened up to be cleared for the benefit of developers and extractive industries.
These 69,000 acres are less than 5% of Wisconsin’s total forest acreage, which may seem small on paper, but it's exactly why the state’s last undisturbed backcountry lives inside them. They are core habitat for the federally endangered gray wolf and threatened northern long-eared bat, and for the American marten, Wisconsin’s only endangered mammal, which cannot survive without mature, unbroken interior forest. They hold breeding ground for sensitive forest birds like the cerulean warbler and red-shouldered hawk. If a logging roads are cut through this area, they will divide one continuous forest into fragments too small for wide-ranging animals to forage, mate, or migrate across. It will create a permanent “edge” that invites invasive species to overrun native wildlife and makes every animal inside easier to hit with a vehicle or a rifle. Do not repeal the Roadless Rule. It's too important to throw out for the sake of short-term corporate/industrial gain.
I think that NFS, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and other federal government agencies should spend more time reflecting on and pursuing Aldo Leopold's "Land Ethic,” than emulating Donald Trump's lack of ethics.
"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect."
Aldo Leopold's "Land Ethic," from, A Sand County Almanac.