I am a restoration ecologist with direct experience monitoring rare plants, including on Forest Service land that is currently protected by the 2001 Roadless Rule. I wholeheartedly oppose the proposal to fully or partially rescind the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The Arizona willow, Salix arizonica, is a rare willow species that acts as an indicator species for the health of high elevation streams and wet meadows in the Four Corners states. The willow is listed as critically imperiled in New Mexico, where I was able to visit populations across its range to evaluate population health and wetland functioning. The results of those surveys were stark: the least accessible, most protected populations were by far the healthiest, with lower incidences of grazing and disease, taller individuals, and more reproductive individuals present. Populations in one of the inventoried roadless areas adjacent to the Latir Peak Wilderness are already at a tipping point, with stunted individual plants that were unable to flower due to cattle grazing in the area. Potentially subjecting this species to additional stressors from development and altered hydrology will have devastating impacts on their already fragmented and struggling populations.
This example is just one in thousands of species, including over 400 that are protected under the Endangered Species Act, that will be negatively affected by opening large swaths of land to new road building and extractive industry uses. The purported benefits in no way outweigh the potential costs of loss of species and their habitats.