No repeal of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule
No roads, no logging: tell the Forest Service to preserve our wilderness The comment period is open until September 21, but don’t delay. Click here and have your say to protect wilderness, ecosystems, and climate for all of us.
Logging, road and building construction corporations will make enormous profits, while wildlife and nature are at risk and can not speak for themselves.
BACKGROUND
 Two weeks ago, the Trump administration filed a proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which has broadly prohibited road construction and logging on some 45 million acres National Forest Service land.
Opening these areas to development threatens some of the most pristine wilderness in the nation, from the Tongass National Forest in Alaska to New Hampshire’s White Mountains.
This rule change has the potential to introduce construction and logging activities that will provide short-term benefits to road building and timber corporations, but increase the risk of fire, reduce biodiversity, pollute watersheds, and increase stress on climate.
Please take advantage of the public comment period, open through September 21, and let the Forest Service know that you object to this rule change. Join over 70,000 people who are speaking out and leave your comment here. Every comment adds up to our voices being heard.
Talking points can include… - The fracturing of wildlife habitat and disruption along migration corridors
- The impact on clean water. Clearcuts lead to faster snowmelt and more erosion, impacting water supply and purity for people and animals alike.
- The loss of carbon-sequestering forests as mature trees are felled.
- The loss of iconic landscapes and wilderness that belongs to all Americans and should be managed for permanence, not timber company profits.
The USDA claims that repealing the Roadless Rule puts forest management decisions in the hands of local National Forest administration, and that it is necessary to construct roads as a wildfire prevention measure.
But peer-reviewed evidence shows that increasing roadbuilding increases, not decreases, the chance of wildfire, with more than 80% of fires occurring within 800 meters of roads.
As for local control, this administration has no problem abruptly firing administrators who get in their way. So who would win? A forester determined to protect a local ecosystem, or a logging company executive willing to write a nice check to MAGA Inc.?
The comment period is open until September 21, but don’t delay.
Visit https://www.regulations.gov/document/FS-2025-0001-223869, and have your say to protect wilderness, ecosystems, and climate for all of us. Nancy Price and David Delk, co-chairs
Photo by Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States - Henry Lake Fall Colors - Autumn at Ottawa National Forest, Upper Peninsula, Michigan, CC BY 2.0 Join the Alliance for Democracy
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