Pause for a moment and listen. What do you hear? Chances are, somewhere in the background, is the ever-present hum of a road.
More than 4.2 million miles of public roads crisscross the lower 48 states—enough to reach the Moon and back almost nine times. This vast network of roads spiderwebs its way across the contiguous US, leaving only about 5 percent as an inventoried roadless area or wilderness.
Now, some of those last remaining lands free of roads are under threat from the Trump administration's proposed rollback of the 2001 Roadless Rule. That includes southeast Alaska's Tongass National Forest, where eagles, bears, salmon, and many other species thrive in old-growth coastal forest along the Inside Passage.
In announcing its plan, the administration said rescinding the rule would remove prohibitions on road construction and logging on nearly 59 million acres of national forest, arguing that the rule slowed economic development. A 30-day public comment period on the formal proposal [PDF] starts once it is published in the Federal Register. Instructions on how to submit comments [PDF] are included in the proposal.
In Congress, another effort is underway to try to change the law through an amendment to the Wildfire Prevention Act. That change, if approved, would both remove the Roadless Rule and prevent the US Forest Service from reinstituting it in the future, despite overwhelming public support for the rule.
As ecologists who have spent decades studying wilderness and the animals and ecological functions that depend on undisturbed habitats, we believe it's important to understand that preserving roadless areas has value for environmental health, clean water, wildlife survival and people's own well-being.
The National Forest Roadless Area Conservation Policy, better known as the Roadless Rule, was issued in January 2001 by President Bill Clinton. It has had overwhelming public support and received more public comments than any other rule in history.
The rule prohibits road construction, maintenance and commercial timber harvest in inventoried roadless areas within the National Forest System. It applies to over 58 million acres across the country, excluding Idaho and Colorado, which have their own state-specific roadless rules. While most of these roadless areas are in the western states and Alaska, 38 total states as well as Puerto Rico host roadless areas.
The primary goal of the Roadless Rule is to maintain forest health and productivity for future generations. It also helps avoid exacerbating the US Forest Service's road maintenance backlog by not making new roads.
The Roadless Rule prohibits new road construction, with very limited exceptions, as well as commercial logging in designated roadless areas. It does not restrict other uses that are compatible with the management plan, such as hiking and mountain biking, or resource uses such as grazing livestock and working existing mining claims.
Beyond providing vital habitat for species and enabling healthy forests, the rule protects drinking water for the millions of Americans whose water flows from national forests. It also preserves high-quality recreation opportunities—hiking, camping, hunting, and fishing—that Americans cherish.
While roads can provide benefits, such as access to forests, they can also do ecological harm.
Roads enable invasive weeds to spread by being carried on vehicle tires and deposited in exposed soils, erode sediments into streams and fragment habitat that wildlife rely on. Vehicles directly kill and injure animals through collisions. They occasionally start fires, too. A recent study found that fires are more likely to start in areas with roads than in areas without.
Studies show that road noise displaces wildlife, increases stress, and can affect wildlife behavior patterns at distances of over a mile from the road.
And roads don't just cause problems for species on land. Most roads cross streams and rivers, which requires building a way for those waters to keep flowing under the road (structures called culverts). While culverts can be designed to allow fish to pass through and maintain ecological connections, they are rarely built to do so. This leads to declines in the health of fish populations and can leave some species locally extinct.
Inventoried roadless areas are among the most ecologically intact and wildest places left in the United States, yet—unlike Wilderness Areas and National Parks—there are no signs acknowledging their boundaries when you enter one.
Most are part of larger ecosystems, directly adjacent or ecologically connected to better known national parks and wilderness areas. Removing Roadless Rule protections would erode ecological buffers to these more famous protected lands.
For some species, roadless areas protect critical core habitat. For instance, over half the suitable habitat for relictual slender salamander, a critically imperiled species native to the Sierra Mountains of California, occurs in a roadless area. Nearly 40 percent of Mount Pinos, lodgepole chipmunk, an imperiled subspecies of the lodgepole chipmunk, also live in roadless areas in California.
Research shows that every formal roadless area provides habitat for at least two wildlife species of conservation concern – those facing risks to their long-term survival – with the median roadless area supporting 10 of these imperiled species. Some Arizona roadless areas contain habitat for up to 62 of these species.
Roadless areas also protect watersheds that supply drinking water to 47 million Americans.
Without this protection, these watersheds would still provide water, but their long-term health and hydrological sustainability could be compromised if roads block stream flow and increase sediments flowing into waterways. The result can be higher costs for water purification.
The Forest Service's own watershed health assessment, known as the Watershed Condition Framework, uses road density as a key indicator of conditions that can disrupt water quantity and quality.
The Trump administration's proposed rollback, expected to be formalized in 2026, would open these last wild places to development, fragmenting habitats that can never be restored.
The American public spoke loudly in 2001 when they supported the Roadless Rule. Two decades later, the public comments submitted on the rescission notice overwhelming opposed rolling back the rules, a Center for Western Priorities review found, reaffirming that US roadless forests remain as vital and valued as ever.
Protecting these areas is about promoting healthy ecosystems on public lands so they can provide hiking, hunting, and fishing opportunities for generations to come to enjoy the tranquility of being in nature.
Mariah Meek, Associate Professor of Integrative Biology, Michigan State University and Travis Belote, Assistant Professor of Landscape Ecology, Montana State University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
(Score: 2) by Username on Wednesday August 26, @10:08AM (2 children)
>That change, if approved, would both remove the Roadless Rule and prevent the US Forest Service from reinstituting it in the future, despite overwhelming public support for the rule.
US Forest Service is known for making roads. It's road network is over twice the size of the interstate highway system. I'm about 90% sure the roadless rule was to prevent them from making new roads.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26, @11:48AM
> US Forest Service is known for making roads.
US Forest Service WAS known for making roads. -- ftfy
According to the history section of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_Service_Road_System [wikipedia.org]
Other parts of the wiki article note that much of the existing road system is not maintained and in poor shape, with much of it closed.
In NY State (not Federal land), I've hiked in some State Forest regions where the terrain suggests there once was a road (likely for logging), but it has been going "back to nature" for a long time. Eventually, the erosion from thoughtless road design is grown over and the forest takes over again (if it is left alone).
(Score: 5, Informative) by mcgrew on Wednesday August 26, @06:27PM
...prevent the US Forest Service from reinstituting it in the future...
That's what our ignorant president thinks, but it's untrue. Congress could override it tomorrow, or the next president can override it in 2029 (or next year if Trump is impeached and removed, but I can't see Jadey reinstituting it).
NOTHING a president does is permanent except damage to society. Even bills he has signed can be overridden. The president doesn't rule (yet), congress has the power to make laws.
Donald Trump is a mixture of Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover, multiplied by ten.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday August 26, @01:32PM (1 child)
The Soviets trashed the heck out of their environment in a bid to keep up with the West. Didn't work, and Russia has been recovering from it ever since.
Now we in the US have worse greedy fools trashing the environment and not even for national security however fake the fearmongering was. They're lining their pockets, and they don't care how much damage it does to us all. Like smashing a $500 car window to steal $1.17 in change.
(Score: 5, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 26, @04:50PM
Bushy Jr also raped the forests for a quick buck with some excuse that the forests can't burn if you clear cut them.
The roadless rule is "a good start" but we (all, globally) need to go further: https://eowilsonfoundation.org/what-is-the-half-earth-project/ [eowilsonfoundation.org]
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by VLM on Wednesday August 26, @02:04PM (4 children)
Citation needed. I suspect less than 1% of the population has ever heard of this. I live in a "recreational state" full of federal forests and I've never heard of this.
Its AI generated propaganda. The LLM couldn't tell the semi-hallucinated claim was ridiculous so it rolled with it, twice in the LLM generated article. Pretty lame.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26, @02:37PM
Citation.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aafcac on Wednesday August 26, @04:21PM (2 children)
My parents are having trouble with property they bought a few years ago getting permission to build a road across public lands. The distance is only a few hundred feet, but since there's a bit of road that goes along a corner that doesn't connect to anything build-able on the land, they haven't been able to get permission.
The whole thing is kind of weird as there's a desire path forming due to all the repeated access to the same part of the property.
There's definitely a need to fix the way that the rules related to crossing government land are written, but getting rid of it completely is going far beyond what makes any sense and likely would just enable more poaching of timber from the public's forests.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26, @05:40PM (1 child)
> ... there's a desire path forming
If there are no drainage/mud/erosion problems with this "two track dirt road", I wonder what would happen if they just kept on using it like a driveway? Assuming clearance, perhaps drive a foot or two to either side, so that narrow ruts don't form.
If a right-of-way is in place for years, does it get grandfathered into a road (or private road)? Maybe a local lawyer would know that answer, my guess is that any rules about this are interpreted differently in different parts of USA.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Wednesday August 26, @08:41PM
I don't think they can do anything provided it doesn't involve cutting down trees or construction. But, really the thing is stupid as owners of land have a right to access.
(Score: 5, Funny) by epitaxial on Wednesday August 26, @03:05PM (3 children)
Wonder what Teddy Roosevelt would say in this situation? He'd probably pop that fat orange sack of shit right in the mouth.
(Score: 5, Funny) by driverless on Wednesday August 26, @03:44PM
That would be one way to stop the proposed change, claim that it was originally an Obama plan to revoke the roadless rule that Trump would now be implementing.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26, @05:48PM (1 child)
Remember, TR was the Veep when President McKinley was shot.
I don't see Vance fitting into TR's shoes, should something happen.
Good old plain Google Search found this--a scan of the first telegram TR sent after hearing of the shooting,
https://www.shapell.org/manuscript/tr-mckinley-assassination/ [shapell.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday August 26, @07:22PM
In one of TR's more famous moments, he was shot, but the bullet was stopped by something in his pocket, so he announced it would take more than that to kill a Bull Moose, finished his speech, and then sought medical care in that order.
So yeah, punching someone in the face would be fully in character.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin