by Dan Roper
Unless you work for the Forest Service, you probably can’t recall the last time you visited an official “roadless area”. I don’t mean just any place without roads – I’m talking specifically about inventoried roadless areas, areas that are managed by the US Forest Service and protected by the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.
Never heard of it? You’re not alone. But this little-known administrative rule protects millions of acres of wild and roadless places across the country, including many special places along the CDT. In fact, 614 miles of the CDT traverse these roadless areas, enhancing the wild character of one of the world’s premier long-distance trails.
If you spend much time on our public lands, you probably visited a roadless area more recently than you think. They aren’t as celebrated as national parks or as renowned as national monuments, but they are out there, all over the landscape, areas of 5,000 acres or more (sometimes a lot more) without any roads at all. They often border national parks and wilderness areas, providing the awe-inspiring, undeveloped views you see from peaks and ridges along the CDT.
Take action by Oct. 15: Tell the Forest Service logging and roads don’t belong in our wildest forests.
For the past 17 years, these places have been protected under the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, more often referred to simply as the “Roadless Rule”. This policy directive, created by the Clinton administration back in 2001, sought to protect our remaining roadless areas on US Forest Service lands – all 58 million acres of them – by prohibiting road construction, timber harvesting, and new energy and mineral leases. The development of the rule involved years of work, more than 650 public hearings, and over 1.5 million public comments – the most comments on any rule-making in our nation’s history at the time. It may be obscure, but the Roadless Rule is considered one of the greatest conservation successes in our lifetimes…and it may be at risk.
Since 2001, the Roadless Rule has survived numerous legal challenges and protected countless watersheds, wildlife habitat, and outdoor recreation opportunities. The biggest failure of the Roadless Rule and its advocates to date might just be that most Americans still don’t know where these places are, or know them by name, even though millions of people visit and enjoy these wild lands each year.
Case in point – how many of us are aware that 614 miles of the CDT traverse inventoried roadless areas? 614 – that’s more than one out of every five miles of the Trail! If you took five months to hike the CDT – about the pace of the average thru-hiker – you’d spend an entire month walking in places protected by the Roadless Rule.
The Roadless Rule provides vital protections to the wild and scenic country along the CDT – 614 miles of trail, millions of acres of forests and wildlands, and countless mountain views free of development. Changes to the rule would have serious consequences for the CDT experience. Change the way roadless lands are managed, and the character of the CDT changes, too.
If you took five months to hike the CDT – about the pace of the average thru-hiker – you’d spend an entire month walking in places protected by the Roadless Rule.
On August 2, 2018, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced its intention to create a new, state-specific version of the Roadless Rule for Alaska. The primary motivation for changing the rule in Alaska is to gain access to the region’s vast, remote timber reserves. Many people see this move to gain access to Alaska’s roadless areas as the first step in gutting the Roadless Rule and removing protections across the country. Based on the current administration’s record of favoring resource extraction over recreation and conservation on our public lands, we at CDTC believe these concerns are valid.
The CDT experience is intended to be an “intimate one, where one can walk or ride horseback across vast fields of wildflowers and contemplate a story dating from the dawn of earth’s history.” Walking along a road rumbling with logging trucks or with views of active mining operations would obviously undermine that CDT experience. But this is exactly what’s at stake when changes to the Roadless Rule are considered.
Americans have until October 15 to comment on the proposed rule change in Alaska. The fate of every roadless acre along the CDT could be decided by what happens there, and the public support our roadless areas receive. Leave your comment for the Department of Agriculture today at www.saveourroadlessforests.com.
Dan Roper is the Gateway Community Coordinator for CDTC. He lives in Silver City, New Mexico, just south of the Meadow Creek Roadless Area, which protects 31,467 acres of the Piños Altos Range in the Gila National Forest.
