am writing to strongly oppose the U.S. Forest Service’s proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. I urge you to withdraw this proposal and maintain the protections that have been in place for the past 25 years. At a minimum, please select Alternative 1, No Action.
I have spent much of my life in the outdoors, and living in New England has made me especially appreciative of how fortunate we are to have access to forests, mountains, rivers, and truly wild places. These are places where people hike, ski, fish, camp, and simply experience the natural world. But they are also much more than recreational spaces. They are essential to clean water, wildlife, biodiversity, carbon storage, and the health of our communities.
The Roadless Rule protects approximately 58.5 million acres of National Forest System lands, including some of the wildest and most intact landscapes remaining in the country. When the Rule was created, more than 1.5 million Americans submitted comments in support of it, a remarkable demonstration of how much these lands matter to the American public.
That protection is especially meaningful here in New England. The Roadless Rule protects approximately 260,000 acres, or about one-fifth of the White Mountain and Green Mountain National Forests combined. It includes extraordinary places such as Franconia Notch, Mount Moosilauke, Mount Chocorua, the Presidential Range, and Vermont’s White Rocks. The Appalachian Trail and Long Trail pass through many of these roadless areas.
Once roads are built and forests are fragmented, we cannot simply undo the damage. These are some of the few places we have left where natural ecosystems can continue to function with relatively little human disturbance.
The benefits extend far beyond recreation. Roadless areas help protect drinking water and buffer communities against floods and drought. In New England, the Roadless Rule helps protect drinking water sources for approximately 8.8% of Vermont residents and 7.3% of New Hampshire residents. In Massachusetts, approximately 7% of residents receive water from sources originating in Inventoried Roadless Areas in the White Mountain National Forest.
These lands also provide critical habitat for native species, including brook trout, Canada lynx, Bicknell’s thrush, American marten, and the northern long-eared bat.
And there is an important irony in proposing to open these areas to additional roads when the Forest Service already faces a multi-billion-dollar backlog in road maintenance. We should be investing in maintaining the roads we already have, not creating new obligations and fragmenting additional public lands.
Roadless areas can also help reduce wildfire risk. Most wildfires are started by people, and recent research found that fires are four times more likely to start near roads. Keeping some forests roadless is therefore not only a conservation strategy. It is also a sensible way to limit human-caused wildfire risk and protect intact forests.
Finally, these lands have cultural importance that goes far beyond recreation. Inventoried Roadless Areas include places important to Indigenous communities for hunting, fishing, gathering plants, food, medicine, and traditional arts, as well as culturally and spiritually significant sites.
We have spent 25 years learning the value of protecting these places. We should not give up those protections now.
New England has already lost much of its original forest and continues to face pressure from development, fragmentation, and climate change. Only about 3.3% of the region is protected from timber harvest and road construction, while scientists estimate that at least 10% should be protected to support biodiversity, carbon storage, and healthy communities. Rescinding the Roadless Rule would move us further away from that goal at exactly the wrong time.
These are public lands that belong to all of us. Once they are opened to roads and development, we cannot get their wildness back.
Please withdraw the proposal to rescind the Roadless Rule and select Alternative 1, No Action.
I also urge my Members of Congress to co-sponsor and pass the Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2025, H.R. 3930 and S. 2042, to codify these protections in law.