We should all be deeply concerned about the most recent challenge to the integrity of our National Forests – the proposed repeal of the US Forest Service Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The proposed public land sell-off included in the recent federal budget reconciliation law was prevented by outspoken and widespread public opposition, but now this new equally disturbing threat is looming. We need to speak out and save our forests again.
On August 29, 2025, under direction from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, the U.S. Forest Service announced the proposed repeal of the Roadless Rule. The public comment period about this proposal is open now for all of us to tell the USDA and the Forest Service what roadless areas on our National Forests mean to us, why we think they are important, and why they need to be retained. Provide your comments no later than September 19, 2025, using this link: https://www.regulations.gov/document/FS-2025-0001-0001. (Click on the comments box on the top left at the link). Here’s why every one of us that loves our national forests, including our own backyard Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, should speak up now.
Inventory Roadless Areas (as they are called by the Forest Service) are areas within National Forests identified according to the 2001 Roadless Rule where new road building, road reconstruction, and timber harvest are generally prohibited. Roadless areas provide abundant benefits to nature and to people. The prohibition on roadbuilding allows these places to remain in a mostly natural condition with limited development and infrastructure. These areas are not designated wilderness but are very often adjacent to designated wilderness areas. They do not have the same prohibitions on specific activities as does wilderness – such as prohibition of the use of mechanical transport (such as bicycles) and motorized equipment (such as ATVs and dirt bikes).
The features and benefits of roadless areas include some of our best and most cherished recreational access for hiking, biking, climbing, kayaking, hunting, fishing, camping, and equestrian use. In their current status they provide critical wildlife habitat, mature continuous forests, magnificent scenic vistas, clean water, and carbon storage.
As is intended by the USDA and the Forest Service, the proposed repeal of the Roadless Rule would open these areas to industrial forest development via road building, especially logging and mining. Allowing roads will bring: increased wildland fire hazard as roads bring more people and most fires are started by people, fragmentation of critical wildlife habitat for both endangered and common species, introduction of invasive weeds as roads are the primary vector for the spread of weeds, loss of iconic forested scenic vistas and viewsheds that are broken up by visible roads and other development, and loss of some of our favorite out-of-the-way secret spots that we use as our refuge from daily life when we seek solace in our public wild lands.
This map shows the location of inventoried roadless areas across National Forest System lands: Outdoor Alliance Roadless Areas. I encourage you to go to this map and zoom in to areas on our local Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest and see where the roadless 
areas are in our central Washington federal public lands backyard. Then, think about what these areas mean to you in their current condition – that is roadless – and then image how they would change if roads and related development were allowed. It’s shocking to see how many of our favorite places are inventoried roadless areas that are now under threat of being opened to industrial development. These places include: much of the Icicle River corridor near Leavenworth adjacent to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, the forests along the North Cascades National Scenic Byway (highway 20) in the upper Methow valley up to the Pasayten Wilderness, parts of the north and south shores of Lake Chelan up to the Lake Chelan-Sawtooth Wilderness or Glacier Peak Wilderness, much of the Entiat River valley up to Glacier Peak Wilderness, and the upper North Fork Teanaway River valley up to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.
We need to keep these and so many other places roadless. Please speak up and submit your comments by September 19.
