Today there are some 45 million acres of National Forest land kept undeveloped and wild thanks to the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. This rule prohibits road building, development, and timber harvests on these protected forests and grasslands. Without doubt, the Roadless Rule is a reliable “political football”. Some administrations support it, and others work to undermine the rule, but the Roadless Rule has stood strong for over 20 years. However, its future is on life-support. The Trump Administration is months away from rescinding these protections, threatening countless intact habitats including Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.
Trout Unlimited is once again defending this rule–Action Alert. Supporting the Roadless Rule is good for fish habitats. Wild and intact streams and waterways scatter these protected lands, and road building and logging threatens those ecosystems and fish. Whether it’s Tongass, 70 percent of Wyoming’s Yellowstone cutthroat habitat, or three quarters of Idaho’s salmon and steelhead habitat, The Roadless Rule provides strong and science-based protections for our cherished public lands. The rule affords recreation, prevents wildfires, and keeps large parcels of forests intact. As climate change and other forces of human development continue harming populations of fish and wildlife, Roadless areas offer an established and science-based defense, one that adds resilience to a changing planet.
Support Trout Unlimited’s Roadless Rule today!
“For Aldo Leopold, one of the prominent ecological thinkers in the history of the United States, the “anvil of wilderness” was the mostly public land that tested the will and mettle of people migrating from the eastern part of the country to the western frontier,” said Trout Unlimited CEO and President Chris Wood.
“Ninety years later, we have a much deeper appreciation of the value of public lands that remain without roads. This is what makes inexplicable the Department of Agriculture’s intent to eliminate the Roadless Area Conservation Rule.”
Phots from Trout Unlimited
Conservation Project Planned for Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout on Teton River
Historic Agreement Between Conservation and Timber Organizations to Preserve 10 million Acres
