URGENT: Help us Protect Millions of Acres of Old-Growth Forest
We urgently need your support to defend the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which currently safeguards approximately 58 million acres of national forest land in “Inventoried Roadless Areas.” These Inventoried Roadless Areas have been protected from logging, roadbuilding, and extraction via the 2001 Roadless Rule, but the US Department of Agriculture wants to remove those protections. Roadless Areas contain over 9.1 million acres of old-growth forest, so we need your help speaking up against this threat!
What is the threat?
Recently the USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that the administration is rescinding this longstanding rule, despite the massive public support for the existing Roadless Rule. On August 25th, the USDA published the official “Notice of Intent,” marking the beginning of a 21 comment period, which serves as the opportunity for the public to inform the USDA of what issues they should considering during this process.
How to comment
You can write your own comment (see our suggestions of a sample comment, which we encourage you to personalize, and other talking points below) and submit directly to the USDA. Or you can just add your name to a petition-style comment via one of our peer organizations, who will submit their comments and sign on lists to the USDA. If you have the time, we recommend writing your own comment! It can be as simple as a few sentences but gives you the opportunity to say exactly what you care about regarding our Roadless Areas.
Sign up for this September 15th Webinar with the Sierra Club to learn more about this public input process.
Sample Comment Language
Secretary Rollins,
I urge you not to rescind the Roadless Rule, which is crucial to the flourishing of our national forests and is a policy that has massive public support. The 45 million acres of remote, wild and roadless forests across our country are the few pockets of unbroken forest where nature can flourish undisturbed. Within that acreage, the US Forest Service has identified over 9.1 million acres of old-growth forests within it’s own 2023 inventory. Old-growth forests take centuries to develop, so any exposure to extraction, roadbuilding, or other activities prohibited by the Roadless Rule are essential to our ability to retain these places for current and future generations.
The longer that forests are left alone and the longer that trees are left to grow, the more time a fully-fledged, interconnected forest ecosystem has to develop. The older trees in these forests support endangered wildlife and filtered clean water. Many recreation activities, which make up a huge industry and source of income for rural communities, rely on the protection of Roadless Areas.
Rolling back the Roadless Rule will not protect communities from wildfire and may in fact lead to more wildfires. Wildfires are four times as likely to start in areas with roads than in roadless forest tracts and 90 percent of all wildfires nationwide started within half a mile of a road. In the past few years, human-started wildfires have harmed old-growth forests.
We shouldn’t jeopardize our country’s natural heritage, wildlife habitat, recreation and clean water that these beloved local forests provide by opening them to road-building, commercial logging, mining and drilling. Please leave America’s last wild forests alone.
These are our public lands, so exercise your rights to weigh in!
How much Old-Growth is at stake?
The 2023 Old-Growth Inventory identified 9,116,931 acres of Old-Growth Forest within Inventoried Roadless Areas.
This is a little over ⅓ of the total old-growth forest inventoried across all national forest lands and about 6% of our total Roadless Area lands. That is a huge proportion of our public old-growth forests that could become vulnerable without the Roadless Rule!
Not only are our crucial old-growth areas at stake, but the older, mature forests that are set to age into old-growth in the next few decades are also at stake. How are we supposed to restore old-growth in the US if so much soon-to-be old-growth becomes open for logging?
Where are the Roadless Areas?
See them on this map. They exist in 38 of our 50 states.
What could happen if the Roadless Rule were rescinded?
Logging and road building may resume after 25 years of protection, fragmenting ecosystems, opening access for invasive species to be introduced, intensifying soil erosion and sedimentation, and disrupting hydrological systems.
Carbon storage could decline: old-growth stands in IRAs currently act as critical carbon sinks; their degradation would significantly reduce ecosystem carbon sequestration capacity. Mature and Old-Growth Forests store vast amounts of carbon and serve as a nature-based approach to mitigating climate change.
Threatened, endangered, and sensitive species could lose vital habitat: IRAs support habitat for more than 65% of all sensitive species tracked by the Forest Service.
Water Quality will suffer: Roads are a major cause of water pollution and intact forests within Roadless Areas are vital for maintaining clean drinking water for communities across the country. Los Angeles, Portland, Denver, and Atlanta receive a significant portion of their water supply from national forests.
Greater risk for human-caused wildfires :New research from The Wilderness Society, now in peer review, shows that from 1992-2024, wildfires were four times as likely to start in areas with roads than in roadless forest tracts. Another study showed that more than 90 percent of all wildfires nationwide occurred within half a mile of a road.
Recreation at risk: According to maps from Outdoor Alliance’s GIS Lab, roadless areas protect 11,337 climbing routes and boulder problems, more than 1,000 whitewater paddling runs, 43,826 miles of trail, and 20,298 mountain biking trails. Large sections of the Continental Divide, Pacific Crest, and Appalachian National Trails traverse protected roadless areas.
Old-growth nurse log in a Roadless Area: Larch Mountain, Mount Hood National Forest. Photo by Chandra Legue
Benefits of Roadless Areas
The following benefits were highlighted within the 2001 Roadless Rule. These benefits are more important than ever and still serve as reasons to continue protection of Roadless Areas.
High quality or undisturbed soil, water, and air.
These three key resources are the foundation upon which other resource values and outputs depend. Healthy watersheds catch, store, and safely release water over time, protecting downstream communities from flooding; providing clean water for domestic, agricultural, and industrial uses; helping maintain abundant and healthy fish and wildlife populations; and are the basis for many forms of outdoor recreation.
Sources of public drinking water.
National Forest System lands contain watersheds that are important sources of public drinking water. Roadless areas within the National Forest System contain all or portions of 354 municipal watersheds contributing drinking water to millions of citizens. Maintaining these areas in a relatively undisturbed condition saves downstream communities millions of dollars in water filtration costs. Careful management of these watersheds is crucial in maintaining the flow and affordability of clean water to a growing population.
Diversity of plant and animal communities.
Roadless areas are more likely than roaded areas to support greater ecosystem health, including the diversity of native and desired nonnative plant and animal communities due to the absence of disturbances caused by roads and accompanying activities. Inventoried roadless areas also conserve native biodiversity by serving as a bulwark against the spread of nonnative invasive species.
Habitat for threatened, endangered, proposed, candidate, and sensitive species and for those species dependent on large, undisturbed areas of land.
Roadless areas function as biological strongholds and refuges for many species. Of the nation's species currently listed as threatened, endangered, or proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act, approximately 25% of animal species and 13% of plant species are likely to have habitat within inventoried roadless areas on National Forest System lands. Roadless areas support a diversity of aquatic habitats and communities, providing or affecting habitat for more than 280 threatened, endangered, proposed, and sensitive species. More than 65% of all Forest Service sensitive species are directly or indirectly affected by inventoried roadless areas. This percentage is composed of birds (82%), amphibians (84%), mammals (81%), plants (72%), fish (56%), reptiles (49%), and invertebrates (36%).
Primitive, Semi-Primitive Non-Motorized, and Semi-Primitive Motorized classes of dispersed recreation.
Roadless areas often provide outstanding dispersed recreation opportunities such as hiking, camping, picnicking, wildlife viewing, hunting, fishing, cross-country skiing, and canoeing. While they may have many Wilderness-like attributes, unlike Wilderness the use of mountain bikes, and other mechanized means of travel is often allowed. These areas can also take pressure off heavily used wilderness areas by providing solitude and quiet, and dispersed recreation opportunities.
Reference landscapes.
The body of knowledge about the effects of management activities over long periods of time and on large landscapes is very limited. Reference landscapes of relatively undisturbed areas serve as a barometer to measure the effects of development on other parts of the landscape.
Natural appearing landscapes with high scenic quality.
High quality scenery, especially scenery with natural-appearing landscapes, is a primary reason that people choose to recreate. In addition, quality scenery contributes directly to real estate values in nearby communities and residential areas.
Traditional cultural properties and sacred sites.
Traditional cultural properties are places, sites, structures, art, or objects that have played an important role in the cultural history of a group. Sacred sites are places that have special religious significance to a group. Traditional cultural properties and sacred sites may be eligible for protection under the National Historic Preservation Act. However, many of them have not yet been inventoried, especially those that occur in inventoried roadless areas.
Other locally identified unique characteristics.
Inventoried roadless areas may offer other locally identified unique characteristics and values. Examples include uncommon geological formations, which are valued for their scientific and scenic qualities, or unique wetland complexes. Unique social, cultural, or historical characteristics may also depend on the roadless character of the landscape. Examples include ceremonial sites, places for local events, areas prized for collection of non-timber forest products, or exceptional hunting and fishing opportunities.
What can you do?
First: Submit a comment! This is your direct avenue for sharing your thoughts with policy makers.
Then, make some noise about how our Roadless Areas are not for exploitation and must maintain their natural values. These policies directly harm our forests and strip away conservation progress for our public lands that has been made over decades.
Share your objections to rescinding the Roadless Rule with your communities.
Write opinion letters to your local papers.
Sign petitions that come across your inbox.
Call your representatives to let them your opinion. If you live near or like to visit a particular Roadless Area, highlight how you benefit from the Roadless Rule protecting the Roadless Area.
Find your Senators’ contact info here.
