Last day for public comments (Round 1) on the Roadless Rule!

Please submit a public comment (click here) in opposition to the rescinding of the Roadless Rule.

Today is your last day to voice opposition to the rescinding of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule (for background on this issue please see this post). The public comment period for the drafting of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) ends Friday September 19 at 11:59 PM.

As of 11:59 PM yesterday, there were 189,345 submitted comments. Please consider adding yours to that tally. Your comment need not be long nor full of scientific details. All you need to do is convey why Roadless Areas are important to you and why we must uphold the Rule to protect them. The important thing is that we make our voices heard.

I want to note that this is the first step in a long process. Your comments here will be considered as the Forest Service drafts the EIS. Once a draft is produced, there will be a second comment period. This process, upheld by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), does not stop there. I will be writing a future post on next steps.

Additionally, upholding the 2001 Roadless Rule should only be seen as a band-aid. What we truly need is the permanent protection of all roadless wildlands across the United States. We can take steps to advocate for this by calling on our elected representatives to propose legislation to these ends. This includes passing landscape-level legislation like the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act. We must take action to preserve these last remaining pieces of our natural heritage.

To close, I would like to share the comment I submitted. This is how I chose to voice my opposition. Every voice, in every style, matters a great deal.

Please submit a public comment (click here) in opposition to the rescinding of the Roadless Rule.

My name is Ryan Williams, and I am a conservation biologist from Massachusetts. As a lifelong New Englander, I cherish what little public land we have in the northeast. Our landscape was rapidly deforested in the centuries following European settlement and it has taken generations for our forests to rebound. We have far less wild country than our western counterparts, though all of it is important. Inventoried Roadless Areas (IRA) protected by the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule are some of the few remaining wildlands left in the northeast.

I vehemently oppose the rescinding of the 2001 Roadless Rule. It would be an environmentally and socially irresponsible act to needlessly log some of our few remaining public wildlands.

Roadless Areas are a bastion of biodiversity, providing critical habitat for innumerable wildlife species. A recent study found that 308 of 537 species of conservation concern in the United States have habitat contained within our Inventoried Roadless Areas (study attached). Wide-ranging species, like the federally threatened Canada lynx, require large core habitat areas connected by corridors throughout the landscape. Many of the existing large forest blocks required by these species are comprised of Inventoried Roadless Areas.

Inventoried Roadless Areas provide countless opportunities for passive wildland recreation. In my own “backyard”, the Forest Service recognizes 25,000 acres of IRA’s in the Green Mountain National Forest (Vermont) and 241,000 acres in the White Mountain National Forest (New Hampshire and Maine) that fall under the protection of the Roadless Rule. This is over 20% of the national forest in New England. Many of these areas contain some of the region’s most popular hiking trails and access to iconic mountains and ridgelines; not to mention Wilderness. Areas that local hikers hold sacred include Franconia Ridge (Pemigewasset IRA), the Presidential Range (Presidential-Dry River Ext IRA), and the extensive trail network maintained by the Randolph Mountain Club in the northern Presidentials (Great Gulf Ext IRA).

Part of the justification of the Roadless Rule was the fiscal burden that road building and reconstruction had on the Forest Service. At the time of the Rule’s creation, the Forest Service had an $8.4 billion backlog in road maintenance. From 1992 to 1997, returns on timber sales were 82 cents on the dollar due to the cost of road construction and maintenance. Public lands logging accounts for a massive subsidy for private industry. We cannot trade away our public forests to private industry! Especially not at a loss.

Additionally, wildfire prevention will not be achieved through massive logging projects in our public Roadless Areas. Logging our wildlands will not reduce the risk of wildfire. In fact, there are myriad studies by reputable scientists that show it might in fact increase that risk. What we should be focused on is home hardening and defensible space, as well as providing funding for communities in fire-prone ecosystems to implement these practical measures. It would be cost effective, save lives and property, and preserve our beloved national forests.

The list of benefits that wildlands provide is endless. Aside from the points detailed above, Roadless Areas provide vast amounts of carbon sequestration, safeguard our clean water, and reduce the risks of floods.

I urge you to think with the present and future in mind. Please do not make the mistakes of the past. Preserve the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule and protect our forests.