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The Roadless Rule is an essential component of the preservation and conservation ideals that motivated federal public lands management in the first place. As it stands, it is difficult to find true wilderness, wilderness without a road within 5 miles.
“Ecological impacts from roads may be the rule rather than the exception in most of the conterminous United States. We measured the proportion of land area that was located within nine distances from the nearest road of any type, and mapped the results for 164 ecoregions and 2108 watersheds nationwide. Overall, 20% of the total land area was within 127 m of a road, and the proportion increased rapidly with distance, so that 83% was within 1061 m of a road, and only 3% was more than 5176 m away. For forest land area only, the proportions differed by less than 2% for all distances. Regions with more than 60% of their total land area within 382 m of a road may be at greatest risk of cumulative ecological impacts from roads. These regions include nearly all coastal zones, as well as substantial portions of the southeast US and the basins of the Ohio, Brazos, Colorado, Sacramento, and San Joaquin Rivers.”
https://research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/5325
As an American, I feel immense pride and love for the public lands we preserve and share with the world. These landscapes drive our tourism economies which communities depend on. In 2024 alone, visitors to national parks contributed $56 billion dollars to the US economy. (https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1207/national-park-visitor-spending-contributed-%2456-billion-to-the-u-s-economy-in-2024.htm)
We don’t need more roads, we don’t need more resource extraction, we don’t need more urbanization. We need to stay true and faithful to the intent behind establishing public lands- protecting them for future generations. What has always been the greatest threat to them is ourselves. Protect public lands. Attached is a photo of me and my husband, cherishing our time in our nation’s public lands and a photo of my sister and I, visiting the same place 20 years earlier.