FS-2025-0001-607277

To the U.S. Forest Service: I am an Asheville resident and someone who regularly recreates in the mountains and public lands of Western North Carolina. The forests surrounding Asheville are not just scenery to me, they are places where I hike, explore, recharge, and spend time with friends and family. They are part of what makes Western North Carolina feel like home. The Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests contain approximately 152,000 acres of Inventoried Roadless Areas, representing roughly 15% of the two forests. These areas include portions of the Black Mountains, South Mills River, Wilson Creek, Graveyard Fields, and other backcountry landscapes that are deeply important to the people who live and recreate here. I am writing to urge the Forest Service to reconsider its proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule and to maintain meaningful protections for the remaining roadless areas in our national forests. This issue is particularly important here in Western North Carolina. For Asheville and surrounding communities, the forests provide much more than opportunities for recreation. The Forest Service's own management plan recognizes clean and abundant water, healthy ecosystems, wildlife habitat, and opportunities for people to connect with the land as important priorities for the Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests. These forests contain headwaters and watersheds that support streams, rivers, aquatic species, and communities throughout Western North Carolina. As someone who spends time in these forests, one of the things I value most is the ability to get away from roads and development. There is a meaningful difference between hiking through an intact forest and hiking through a landscape increasingly shaped by roads, construction, and motorized access. Roadless areas provide opportunities for solitude and backcountry recreation that cannot simply be recreated once a road has been built. I recognize that the Forest Service has legitimate responsibilities to address wildfire, forest health, access, and other management challenges. However, those responsibilities do not eliminate the need to consider what could be lost by removing existing protections. Rescinding the Roadless Rule would change the baseline for future management decisions. Once roads are constructed into currently intact landscapes, the character of those places and the recreational, ecological, and watershed values they provide can be difficult or impossible to restore. This is especially significant for Western North Carolina as our communities and forests continue to recover from the enormous disruption caused by Hurricane Helene. The Forest Service has recognized the significant impacts Helene had on the mountains of Western North Carolina and National Forest System lands. At a time when our region is rebuilding and thinking seriously about resilience, protecting intact forests and watersheds deserves particular consideration. I also ask the Forest Service to recognize that roadless does not mean unmanaged. The existing Roadless Rule does not designate these lands as wilderness, and roadless areas can still be managed for legitimate stewardship needs under the existing framework. There are ways to address wildfire risk, forest health, habitat restoration, and emergency needs without eliminating broad protections for some of our remaining undeveloped public lands. For me, this issue ultimately comes down to what kind of public lands we want to leave for the next generation of Western North Carolinians. I want my community to continue to have forests where people can hike for miles without encountering a road, where streams and headwaters remain protected within intact watersheds, where wildlife has connected habitat, and where people can experience the Southern Appalachians without extensive development. These places are part of the identity of Asheville and Western North Carolina. They provide benefits to residents, visitors, wildlife, and communities throughout the region. I respectfully ask the Forest Service to retain the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule and maintain meaningful protections for Inventoried Roadless Areas in the Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests. Thank you for considering my comment. Sincerely,
 Rose G. Asheville, North Carolina