FS-2025-0001-605085

Dear Acting Director White: As members of the National Parks Conservation Association’s (NPCA) Northern Rockies Regional Council we urge the U.S. Forest Service to keep the Roadless Rule in place to protect the water, air, wildness, and wildlife that sustain our national parks including Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton. For a quarter century, the Roadless Rule has protected the integrity of key national park landscapes providing quality, secure habitat for elk, grizzly bears, and other wildlife, quiet backcountry recreation like hiking, hunting, mountain biking and horseback riding. Roadless areas are also a drinking water source for 60 million Americans. The roadless rule was adopted over a generation ago with overwhelming public support following extensive public engagement processes that included at least 600 community meetings across the country by the Forest Service. This time, no public meetings are being offered and only a scant 33-day public comment period. While we care about roadless areas throughout the country, we are especially concerned about those critical to and connect the national park landscapes in the Northern Rockies. These include the Badger-Two Medicine, Jewel Basin, Swan Front, Centennial Mountains, Gallatin Range, Winegar Hole, and the Absaroka Range. The Council works with NPCA’s Northern Rockies regional staff and includes business and community leaders committed to securing the future of our national parks. We work with communities and businesses to support national parks in Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming. Healthy national parks depend on healthy forests, clean waterways, and intact public lands beyond their boundaries, including many places protected by the Roadless Rule. More than 45 million acres of national forest lands are designated as roadless, and nearly 30% of those acres are within 30 miles of national park sites. Rescinding the Roadless Rule will remove protections from roughly six million acres in Montana, more than three million acres in Wyoming, and 250,000 acres in North Dakota. Across the Northern Rockies region, the Roadless Rule protects public lands that are integral to national park landscapes. These protections include: Roadless areas in the Greater Yellowstone help support the wildlife movement, expanded recreation opportunities, wildlife fire resilience, and watershed health of our nation's first national park by 29 percent. The same holds true with roadless areas increasing the protected core by 32 percent for the Crown of the Continent and Glacier National Park. Roughly 20,000 acres of roadless area in the Dakota Prairie Grasslands along the border of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, protecting important headwaters and hydrological features habitat for elk, bighorn sheep, migratory birds, and the federally protected Northern Long-Eared Bat. Roadless areas in roughly a dozen national forests across Montana and Wyoming provide core grizzly bear habitat as well as intact habitat to support connectivity between the grizzlies of Yellowstone and Glacier. Roads are one of the great threats to grizzly bear recovery and removing roadless protections from these lands will lead to increased bear mortality and human/grizzly conflicts. If Roadless Rule protections are rescinded, these lands—and more than 45 million acres of public lands nationwide—will be opened to roadbuilding, large-scale logging, mining, and oil and gas development, putting nearby national parks, gateway communities, outdoor recreation, clean water, and wildlife at risk. As national park advocates and community leaders from across the region, we urge you to choose the No Action alternative and keep the Roadless Rule in place to protect roadless forests and the national park landscapes they sustain. Thank You, Andrew Salter Jackson, WY Laurel Angell Bozeman, MT George and Lynda Corn Hamilton, MT Bill and Colette Berg Gardiner, MT Elizabeth Setsuko Raffin Bozeman, MT Valerie Naylor Rapid City, SD Marian L Meyers Jackson, WY