I oppose the proposal to fully or partially rescind the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. My name is Heather Tuckman, and I live in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Public lands need protection from development, especially the destructive policies that installing roads and vehicular access to wild and remote places would create. I strongly value preserving public lands, and as a board member of the Friends of the Stateline Serpentine Barrens, I have worked to protect biodiversity. Moreover, I have responsibly recreated on public lands throughout my life, from a childhood spent camping, hiking, fishing, skiing, and appreciating the public lands in the Western US, to my adult life spent doing these activities throughout the Northeast. These activities are immensely important to me, and I want others to be able to continue to do them on public lands too, without the threat of further disturbance to these places. The Sierra Nevada, Great Basin, and the Monongahela National Forest are particularly significant places. I am very concerned about the impact of establishing roads in remote places, as this would introduce more noise and light pollution and damage water quality. Roads damage not only the land they are built on, but also the surrounding land, as they act as conduits that introduce invasive plants and pathogens into previously preserved spaces. I wholeheartedly oppose the Roadless Rule and the damage it would cause, and I ask that, for all the reasons listed above, Alternative 1, the No Action alternative, be followed. Please oppose the proposal to fully or partially rescind the Roadless Area Conservation Rule.
The Forest Service should keep the Roadless Rule intact exactly as it is. Do not weaken or repeal this critical policy.
National forests are the heart of our public lands. The Roadless Area Conservation Rule protects some of the wildest forests we have left, forests that protect critical wildlife habitat and drinking water for millions. Revoking the Roadless Rule puts landscapes, wildlife, and communities at risk.
Not only is the Roadless Rule good policy, it's also wildly popular across the country, with over 600,000 people submitting comments to the US Forest Service last year in support of keeping the rule in place. And more than 20 years ago, the American people overwhelmingly called for our national forests to be protected for future generations. Revoking the Roadless Rule would destroy the natural inheritance we leave for our children.