As an individual, a Coloradan, and an American, I am concerned by the proposed repeal of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which would open the door to misuse of public lands.
The truth cleverly told is the biggest lie of all. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins and Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz have presented this rescission as a boon to forest management and wildfire risk reduction. They claim that 40% of roadless territory is at high wildfire risk, and that fire reduction treatment is long overdue. They assert that redirecting oversight from federal purview to local hands will improve outcomes. And doesn't it make sense? A one-size-fits-all federal rule couldn't possibly allow the flexible management necessary for individual forests and communities, right?
But the messenger is the message. Rollins has little expertise in forest management but plenty in economics and agricultural development, and Schultz has a long history in logging for profit. The USDA's press release on August 18th fixated more on the Roadless Rule's hindrance of partisan administration objectives than strategically reducing wildfire risks and promoting wilderness health. The USDA stated, "The rescission aligns with Executive Order 14192, Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation, to alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens, Executive Order 14225, Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production, Executive Order 14154, Unleashing American Energy, and Executive Order 14153, Unleashing Alaska's Extraordinary Resource Potential." Removing the Roadless Rule is a paramount step in allowing private industry to access wilderness spaces, which is expressly against the wishes of the American public.
Extractive industry-interested parties insist on pursuing the Rule's destruction, and the forest service appears to be acquiescing to their desires. Their continual refusal to hold open public hearings is a slap in the face of voters.
The forest service manages eight times more miles of road than the entire US highway system. We can't manage the roads we do have, made clear by a maintenance backlog worth $6 billion. An astonishing number of fires in forests are due to human driven consequences - 80% of which are within a half mile of a road. The problem doesn't seem to be lack of roads so much as lack of resources to deal with fires when they arise, and if our money is going towards more roads it certainly isn't going towards fighting fires by the roads we already have. And while less than 5 percent of our land is roadless or wilderness, the outdoor recreation economy represents almost 2.4 percent of the entire U.S. GDP, and hunting generates a total economic output of over $107 billion. These activities rely on remoteness and land teeming with natural flora and fauna. They cultivate an appreciation for our American heritage as well promote our economy. Rashly endangering a healthy portion of our economy and environment for extractive corporate interests hardly seems wise.
At some point in time, we will need to reevaluate the Roadless Rule. There should be exemptions and processes to allow the safe management of our lands when there are no other options or when local interests truly misalign with federal oversight. But the complete abolishment of a key stopgap for unbridled private industry is telling. There has been no discussion of how we will preserve wilderness spaces should roads need to be built. There is this assumption, it seems, that the details will pleasantly work themselves out, or that the profits from logging and oil will satisfy everyone to such an extent that we will not mind that our greatest national treasures have been overrun by corporate interests. The damage to delicate ecosystems could be generationally devastating.
In conclusion, repealing the Roadless Rule in this hasty and simply profit-minded way is against the American spirit of things. A nostalgic fervor is gripping the regulatory agencies in question, and it biases them towards methods of the past. While true that we have used our natural resources mightily, and to such great effect that we reap the benefits of our forefather's actions today, it is not because their actions were eternally and universally applicable and effective. It is because they were gripped by the needs of their day. They were not looking back to how their grandparents did business. They looked forward to how they would be doing business. The actions which made us will not continue making us.
It is a new day, and we need to sustain a new generation whose needs and desires seem to be ever more intertwined with the preservation of public lands, and protections of our environment, and industry that incorporates both of those goals. Until there is a concrete and publicly favorable plan to deal with wilderness areas that need roads, and protect those lands even after those roads are built, the overarching Roadless Area Conservation Rule needs to remain intact and in force.