Roadless area conservation

By repealing the rule, they're really removing the guarantee or the commitment that we're going to keep wild places wild.

Reactions to a proposal to get rid of the roadless rule.

That's next on WPR News.

It's Wisconsin Today.

The Trump administration announced a proposal last month to get rid of the U.S. Forest Service's roadless area conservation rule.

It was adopted in 2001, and it protects millions of acres from logging, road building, and other development on national forest lands.

According to the Department of Agriculture, more than 95% of roadless areas are in 10 western states, but the roadless rule applies to 69,000 acres of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in northern Wisconsin.

The Forest Service says that the rule is preventing effective fire management in these areas and that taking it away will offer land managers more flexibility.

This rule has now been in place for 25 years.

In 1999 and 2000, public comments were taken about this idea of a new roadless rule as this topic was hot both from people in favor of and against this rule.

In August of this year, 2026, the current U.S. presidential administration has advocated that this rule be removed.

On August 20, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where the U.S. Forest Service lives, publicly announced plans in the Federal Register to rescind this roadless rule.

There is a public comment period open now until September 21 of this year, 2026, on this topic, and you can comment in favor of keeping the rule or in favor of removing it.

Currently, the comment window is open right now, and it will close on September 21 of 2026.

The comment link is in our episode notes.

For this episode, our guest is a person who was working at the upper levels of the Forest Service when the roadless rule was initially suggested and implemented in 1999. in 2000, and then finally in 2001.

Um, but we have other tools in place, um, that help control natural resource gathering.

National monuments and roadless rule do not control...

They help add an extra buffer to natural resource gathering, but that extra buffer is really negatively impacting recreation.

The tool to stop...

Bad natural resource gathering is not the roadless rule and not national monuments.

The rule that stops those things is NEPA evaluations, environmental evaluations, public comment periods.

Those are the tools that are used to actually stop those things.

The roadless rule, national monuments being massive sizes, those are just extra buffers.

Next is our policy watch segment [gun cocking].

On the federal side of things We've got a lot going on with the Roadless Rule and travel management but first I just wanna touch on an important advocacy opportunity BHA is part of.

Public Lands Day is September 26th And BHA along with Duct Tape Then Beer, the Conservation Alliance, the Outdoor Alliance, the Wilderness Society and MeatEater are rallying our collective communities to express to lawmakers three key things.

First No more public land sell offs.

To drive this message home, we've got an incredibly ambitious goal to collect one million signatures and hand-deliver them to DC into state houses around the country.

Please join us.

Go to savepubliclands.us or over to the BHA website for details on how to sign our letter I'll have a link in the show notes All right, let's talk about the Roadless Rule Backcountry Hunters and Anglers went straight to the source The Forest Service's own draft environmental impact statement...

the analysis the administration prepared to justify rescinding the two thousand and one roadless rule What that document actually says might surprise you Let's start with access One of the most common claims is that the roadless areas are locked up unused inaccessible But the DEIS reports that national forests containing inventoried roadless areas receive about a hundred and twenty five million visits annually That's seventy six percent of all visits to National Forest System lands These aren't empty places these are some of the most heavily used public lands we have Now what about the argument that we need to rescind the rule for wildfire management? The forest service's own analysis finds that wildfire ignitions are currently lower in roadless areas and in designated wilderness than any other national forest lands The DEIS goes on to say that more roads would likely mean more human caused fires The proposed fix for that shutting down access during high risk periods Then there's the question of money The DEIS estimates that a full repeal could generate between five and eleven million dollars a year in timber revenue but it also rejects an estimated six point one million dollars in annual losses to recreation That's nearly a wash Before you even account for the six point nine billion dollar deferred maintenance backlog on existing roads which the proposed rule itself acknowledges will limit any efficiency gains Add new roads to a system you can't afford to maintain And the math gets worse not better Meanwhile In Twenty Twenty Four visitors to national forests potentially affected by their decision spent eight point five billion dollars in local communities How about wildlife? The potentially affected areas provide habitat for more than three hundred threatened endangered and proposed species plus roughly thirty five hundred additional sensitive species The DEIS acknowledges that increased road construction and timber harvest could undermine the integrity of that habitat Now here is the bottom line BHA isn't asking you to take anyone's word for it We are asking you to look at what the administration's own document says We put a full breakdown citations page numbers the works on our website I will definitely have a link to that in the show notes The clock is ticking On the road This rule Comment period You have only until September twenty first to get your comments in Do it now We've got it all laid out for you on the website including a quick and easy action alert as well as links to the federal eRulemaking portal Travel Management Here's the situation For more than twenty years the travel management rule has determined where motorized vehicles can and cannot go on national forest system lands Those decisions have been made forest by forest informed by local input on the ground conditions and the best available science With the goal of balancing public access against the conservation of fish wildlife and quality habitat that framework is now on the table for rewrite Following an executive order from President Trump the Forest Service has issued a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement and revise its travel management regulations This will open the first public scoping andcomment period Your first real chance to shape what comes next So what's actually being proposed? A few things worth flagging First the agency is considering an open unless closed presumption That means existing roads and trails would be presumed open to motorized use Unless a closure is specifically required by law It flips the current approach on its head Second the proposal would remove what are called national minimization criteria the standards that currently direct to minimized damage to soils watersheds and vegetation to limit harassment of wildlife and disruption of habitat and reduce conflicts between different recreational users those guardrails would come out Third the agency wants to replace the minimum road system requirement which directs force to maintain only the roads they actually need and can afford With a vaguer standard of an adequate and appropriate transportation system Given that the Forest Service already carries a nearly seven billion dollar deferred maintenance backlog on existing roads this raises some real questions There are also other pieces too The proposal would allow limited offroad motorized use for things like retrieving downed big game dispersed camping and firewood collection It would also reclassify class one Ebike so they're not treated as motor vehicles on trails where traditional bicycles are already permitted Some of these ideas may have merit but the removal of the minimization criteria the core protections for soil water and wildlife is the kind of thing that once gone doesn't come back easily Here's what matters This rulemaking is happening at the same time the agency is proposing to rescind the Two Thousand and One Roads Rule Taken together, these represent the most consequential shift in how our national forests are managed in a generation.

If you're hearing this before September 21st and you care about public lands, they need you to act, and I'm about to tell you how.

The Trump administration, among all the other devious things they are trying to do, is attempting to open 45 million acres of protected public lands to destructive road building, logging, mining, and other exploitative uses by repealing something called the roadless rule.

Fortunately, this repeal effort has gotten a lot of press, but if you're not familiar, here's a quick primer.

Since 2001, the roadless area conservation rule, or simply the roadless rule, has protected over 45 million acres of public lands and the wildlife that rely on them from commercial exploitation.

There are about 4 million acres of forests covered by the roadless rule in Oregon and Washington alone, including iconic Oregon landmarks like Larch Mountain, Iron Mountain, Mount Hebo, and a lot more.

Today I'm going to re-air part of an interview I did with Len Montgomery, director of Environment America's Great Outdoors campaign and one of the leaders of the Coalition to Protect the Roadless Rule.

Len and I get into all the reasons you should take action to help us protect the world's rule from Trump and his fascist goons, but it all boils down to this.

The administration has a legally required comment period open until September 21st, and we need your help creating an absolutely massive show of resistance.