In June, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced that the USDA is rescinding the Roadless Rule, eliminating restrictions on road building and timber harvest across nearly 59 million acres of national forest. These restrictions have been in place for nearly 25 years.
In 2001, President Clinton enacted the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. In creating this rule, six-hundred public meetings were held across the country, and more than 1.6 million public comments were submitted in support of keeping wild landscapes intact: more responses than any other rule in our nation’s history.
Since then, the rule has withstood decades of attacks from critics and oppositional administrations, while protecting 58.5 million acres of land in 39 states from costly and harmful roadbuilding and clear-cut logging. In Minnesota, there are roadless areas in the Superior National Forest. These areas, totaling 62,000 acres, are subject to the rule, which restricts road construction and reconstruction.
The Roadless Rule is a bedrock protection for our National Forest system, and generates tourism, outdoor recreation, and hunting opportunities nationwide. Roadless areas sustain essential ecosystems for wildlife, such as the salmon in southeast Alaska and grizzly bears in the Yellowstone region, which are vital to the fishing industry and subsistence traditions. The rule has been crucial in preserving the integrity of intact, wild landscapes, most notably in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, the largest remaining old growth forest in the country. More than 60 million Americans get their clean drinking water from our national forests, and roadless areas contain all or portions of 354 municipal watersheds.
Repealing the Roadless Rule is bad climate science: mature and old growth trees store carbon dioxide and provide cooling shade. These forests fight climate change simply by existing. Roadless areas include huge amounts of our remaining mature and old growth trees: wild, unfragmented, and some of the best habitats left in our federal forests.
This announcement is yet another attempt by the Trump administration to sell off and sell out our public lands under the guise of forest management and economic development. 58.5 million old growth acres would be vulnerable to private logging interests. Wildfires are nearly four times more likely to start in areas that have roads, so this decision is certainly not about fire safety. This is just another move to privatize our public lands, selling what is ours to corporate interests.
We are expecting a short (14 day) public comment period this fall. We must raise our voices and have massive public participation during this short period. To learn more and prepare to participate, you can sign this petition from the national Sierra Club. Also see this article in the Sierra magazine. Please stay tuned, and be ready to act.