Josh Kelly of MountainTrue on Defending the Roadless Rule

Yeah, I describe the 2001 roadless rule as being the most important environmental regulation that most people have never heard of.

You know, most people know about the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act generally, things like that.

But the roadless rule protects 58 million acres of national forest land for values like clean water, wildlife habitat and recreation.

Today, on the Blue Ridge, a 25-year-old rule protecting some of our nation's wildest public lands is under attack.

Here to make the case for keeping the roadless rule is Josh Kelly, the Resilient Forests Program Director for Mountain True, a nonprofit that champions resilient forests, clean waters, and healthy communities across the Southern Blue Ridge.

I'm your host, John Page.

Let's begin.

Adopted by the Clinton administration in 2001, the roadless rule aimed to preserve relatively undeveloped forests by restricting road construction and timber harvesting across a wide swath of the national forest system.

This August, the Trump administration formally proposed repealing the rule, opening a public comment period that runs through September 21st.

The administration argues that eliminating those restrictions would give local forest managers more flexibility to reduce wildfire risks and improve forest health.

But environmental and conservation groups are sounding alarms, arguing that repealing the rule could actually increase wildfire risk.

They also warned that repeal could lead to more logging and road construction that threatened landscapes, wildlife habitat, and important watersheds.

Among those groups is Asheville-based Mountain True.

Here in western North Carolina, more than 150,000 acres of roadless land are protected in the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests.

That includes forests around beloved places like Graveyard Fields, Craggy Mountain, and South Mills River, just to name a few.

Mountain True is urging people who oppose the repeal to take action and submit public comments on the proposal before the comment period closes on September 21, 2026.

You can learn more about that in our show notes or at mountaintrue.org. And I can attest that it only takes a few minutes of your time.

Josh is a native of Madison County and a graduate of UNC Asheville.

At Mountain True, he monitors logging and development issues on public lands and provides site-specific scientific information to promote ecological restoration and oppose ecologically damaging management.

In this episode, Josh explains why he opposes repealing the roadless rule and walks us through some of the science around wildfire.

We talk about the connection between roads and wildfire, as well as the challenges of building roads in undeveloped forests.

We also discuss what Josh sees as a larger debate over the role of the Forest Service.

Josh also discusses the National Park Service's hazardous fuel debris removal project along the Blue Ridge Parkway, plans for the Craggy Mountain National Scenic Area, what a healthy southern Appalachian forest actually looks like, and how growing up in Madison County helped shape his relationship with these mountains.

But our conversation begins with the roadless rule and why Josh believes it's worth protecting.