I am writing to oppose the proposed rescission of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule (Docket FS-2025-0001).
I have lived in Sedona, Arizona for 16 years. My wife and I run a small business hosting visitors who come here for one reason: the land. The Coconino National Forest surrounds our town. Our guests come to hike it, photograph it, and get away from roads and noise. Wild, unroaded forest is not a luxury here. It is the local economy, and it is why people live here.
The 2001 Rule was not handed down overnight. It came out of years of hearings and more than a million public comments, and the public's answer was clear: keep the last roadless places roadless. Throwing that out with a short comment period and almost no public hearings disregards the people who own these lands — all of us.
The stated goal is "flexibility" and "reducing regulatory burden." In practice, removing a national standard means each roadless area becomes a fresh fight, forest by forest, under pressure from whoever wants to build or log there next. Protections that can be undone one plan at a time are not protections.
The Forest Service already cannot maintain the roads it has. It carries a multi-billion-dollar maintenance backlog. Building more roads into some of the last intact land makes that worse, not better. Roads bring erosion, sediment in streams, invasive weeds, and more human-caused fires. The 2001 Rule already allows work to reduce wildfire risk, so rescinding it is not needed for fire safety.
These roadless areas protect clean water, wildlife habitat, and some of the last quiet places left in this country. Once a road goes in, that land is never roadless again. That cannot be undone by a future plan.
I urge USDA to withdraw this proposal and keep the 2001 Roadless Rule in place.
Traci Quebbeman
Sedona, Arizona