To the USDA Forest Service:
I am writing to strongly oppose the proposed rescission of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule and to ask that the Forest Service keep the Rule in place in full.
Let me be direct about where I stand. I do not want a single acre given up. I am deeply disappointed by the broader pattern of public land being taken from the American people, including the shrinking of national monuments and other protections we have lost. I want more public land, not less. These are our children's lands, and I do not believe it is fair or right to rescind this Rule and take them away from the next generation.
I am an elementary teacher, a graduate student in education, and a mom. My family's best memories happen on public land. On a spring break camping trip, my husband and I watched our two kids spend an entire afternoon kneeling in a creek on the Ouachita National Forest, holding quartz up to the sunlight and asking where it came from. There was no admission fee and no gift shop, just wild ground that belongs to all of us. That very forest, which covers most of the Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas and Oklahoma, contains about 35,000 acres of Inventoried Roadless Areas across six roadless areas. In other words, the backcountry my children explored is precisely the kind of land this rescission would open to road building and logging. We are saving for a small travel trailer for one reason: to see more places like that before our children grow up. Those places only stay wild if they stay roadless.
I see the same thing in my classroom. When my students learn outside, the child who cannot sit still becomes the one who spots the animal tracks, and the quiet child starts asking questions. Research supports what teachers see every day. Kuo, Barnes, and Jordan (2019) reviewed hundreds of studies and found converging evidence that experiences with nature boost children's academic learning, personal development, and environmental stewardship. Roadless forests are the outdoor classrooms of the next generation, and once a road is cut, that classroom is changed for good.
The wildfire justification for this rescission does not hold up. A 2026 peer reviewed study of more than three decades of national forest fire records found that ignition density was about four times higher within 50 meters of roads (7.99 fires per 1,000 hectares) than in Inventoried Roadless Areas (1.97 per 1,000 hectares). The authors concluded that building roads into roadless areas is likely to result in more fires (Aplet et al., 2026). Most human caused fires start where people and vehicles can reach. Presenting new roads as fire prevention asks the public to accept more ignitions in the name of fewer. The current Rule already allows fuel reduction work where it is needed. What it prevents is new road building and commercial logging.
Rescission also threatens the water families drink. Olden et al. (2026) found that watersheds influenced by roadless areas supply drinking water to at least 25 million Americans and protect over 130,000 kilometers of streams and rivers. They concluded that rescinding the Rule may compromise drinking water quality and affordability, reduce recreation, and threaten freshwater biodiversity. Even in Arkansas, where my kids found their crystals, about 9.5 percent of the population depends on these watersheds. Meanwhile, the Forest Service already carries a multibillion dollar maintenance backlog on the roughly 370,000 miles of roads it has now. Building more roads the agency cannot afford to maintain is not stewardship.
Finally, the process matters. In 2001, the Forest Service held hundreds of public meetings and received 1.6 million comments. This time, the public was given a short comment period and no federally hosted hearings. A decision this permanent deserves far more public input.
Please keep the Roadless Rule, every acre of it. My students and my children are counting on these places still being wild when it is their turn to explore them.
Sincerely,
Kyrietta Weber
Apple Valley, Minnesota
References:
Aplet, G. H., Hartger, P., & Dietz, M. S. (2026). Three-decade record of contiguous-U.S. national forest wildfires indicates increased density of ignitions near roads. Fire Ecology, 22, Article 8. https://doi.org/10.1186/s42408-026-00450-2
Kuo, M., Barnes, M., & Jordan, C. (2019). Do experiences with nature promote learning? Converging evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, Article 305. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00305
Olden, J. D., Postel, S. L., Dombeck, M. P., Kesting, H., Freeman, P., & Comte, L. (2026). Assessing the value of the U.S. Roadless Rule for people and nature. PLOS Water, 5(7), Article e0000538. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000538