We are about to lose our wildest places. Photo courtesy of the author You are the co-owner of 45 million acres. These public lands are calle
Excerpt from this Op-Ed from Blue Ridge Outdoors:
You are the co-owner of 45 million acres. These public lands are called Roadless Areas, and they are some of the wildest places left.
For the past 25 years, they have been protected under the Roadless Rule, which you helped create. More than 1.6 million Americans submitted comments supporting the Roadless Rule—the most comments ever submitted on a conservation policy—and it remains overwhelmingly popular today. The Roadless Rule prohibits most logging, roadbuilding, mining, and drilling in these areas.
Now, you and the other co-owners of Roadless Areas are about to lose them all.
The Trump administration recently proposed ending the Roadless Rule, which would remove protections for Roadless Areas nationwide and open them to logging, fossil fuel extraction, roadbuilding, and development.
Roadless Areas protect our drinking water, scenery, economy, and recreational oases. Most Roadless Areas are adjacent to national parks, including Yellowstone, Glacier, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon. Here are a few of the places we stand to lose:
Coconino Rim and Big Ridge Roadless Area, next to Grand Canyon National Park, which protects panoramic vistas, the Arizona National Scenic Trail, and Tribal sacred sites.
North Mountain Roadless Area, which protects the Merced River adjacent to Yosemite National Park.
Lionhead Roadless Area, adjacent to Yellowstone National Park and home to grizzly bears, wolves, elk, and wolverines.
Tuolumne River Roadless Area, which safeguards California’s most popular Wild and Scenic River.
The Badger-Two Medicine Roadless Area near Montana’s Glacier National Park, a sacred site for members of the Blackfeet Nation.
Kupreanof Roadless Area in the Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, the world’s largest old-growth forest.
Nearly all the Roadless Areas in the East are concentrated in Appalachia. More than one million acres of Appalachian forests and rivers are currently protected by Roadless Areas, which provide the best remaining fish and wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities. In the Southeast, a few of the iconic and beloved lands and waters that will lose protections include:
The rim of the Linville Gorge—the Grand Canyon of the East.
The Black Mountain Crest Trail—the toughest trail in Appalachia that tops out at the summit of Mount Mitchell, the highest point in the Eastern U.S.
The headwaters of the Chattooga River, made famous by the movie Deliverance.
The edge of the Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness and home of Joyce Kilmer Forest—the largest old-growth in the East.
Beloved trout streams and paddling on Wilson Creek and South Mills River.
World-class mountain biking trails in North Carolina’s Pisgah National Forest.
West Virginia’s Cranberry Glades bogs, beloved for backpacking.
Three Sisters Roadless Area protecting the headwaters of the James River, a drinking water source for millions of Virginians.
Sections of the Appalachian Trail, Benton Mackaye Trail, Bartram Trail, and Mountains to Sea Trail corridors.
Ending the Roadless Rule would be the single-largest evisceration of public lands protection in American history. Drinking water, wildlife habitat, rivers, and recreation hotspots would be threatened across 37 states. Once you start punching roads into Roadless Areas for industrial extraction, there’s no going back. They’re lost forever.
