October 6, 2026
Joshua White, Acting Director
Ecosystem Management Coordination
201 14th Street SW, Mailstop 1108
Washington, DC 20250-1124
RE: Special Areas; Roadless Area Conservation public comment
Submitted electronically to https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/FS-2025-0001-342438 on October 6, 2026
Dear Acting Director White,
I am an individual Alaskan writing on my own behalf and on behalf of my family and future generations. I was raised and currently live in Southeast Alaska alongside the Tongass National Forest.
The federal government should retain the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule and should not proceed with rescission of the rule. The federal government should retain the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule for the Tongass National Forest. The 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule should not be changed or altered.
Time and time again Americans have come out en masse in support of the Roadless Rule on federal land. This is particularly true for the Tongass National Forest, which holds much of this nation’s remaining roadless areas. The Roadless Rule has widespread support among Alaskans and among Southeast Alaskans who live in and around the Tongass. We see retaining unloaded areas as critical for the protection of a sound and healthy ecosystem in our region. The Roadless Rule provides critical protections for wildlife and helps to maintain habitat connectivity and, critically, productivity. Areas that are roaded have consistently over time become poorer producers of salmon and deer, key species that we rely upon for food security and for our families and dinner tables.
Roading wild and unloaded places is permanent, or as near as humans get to permanent. Nowhere in this country where roads have been introduced have the areas been cleared of roads at a later time. Just about damn near everywhere in this country is within 5-10 miles of a road. This means that unroaded areas are a critically threatened national resource. There is no evidence that this vital quality can be restored. This country has recognized the importance of protecting roadless areas since the Wilderness Act of 1964. In the intervening 60 years protecting the remaining roadless areas has only become more important, and ever more critical.
In the Tongass National Forest it is clear that roading has a negative impact on salmon habitat. Roading increases erosion, increases the speed and force of surface water flow, and has consistently been associated with blocked riparian habitat for anadromous fish, including habitat for the key five species of salmon; coho, chinook, chum, sockeye, and pink that are commercially harvested and provide critical income for Alaskans and others.
In the Tongass, the Roadless Rule does not prevent transportation corridors between communities, utility corridors, or roads for access to key projects like mines or hydroelectric power sites. Here in Southeast Alaska we consider the Roadless Rule as critically important to protect the area from further large scale clearcut logging. The Tongass has already been heavily hit and unsustainably overharvested. Further clearcut logging projects should not take place, particularly at large scale, and in particular in or nearby the Inventoried Roadless Areas. The 2001 Roadless Rule should be retained to help protect the area from further logging.
Drop the rescission! Leave the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule in place and intact and unaltered!
Your fellow American,
Aaron Brakel
309 D Street
Douglas, Alaska, 99824