The Roadless Rule was created in 2001 to preserve wild areas in national forests. This summer, the United States Department of Agriculture announced its intention to rescind the rule. The public can comment on the issue through Friday.
This does not currently affect Idaho because the Gem State has its own Roadless Rule, signed in 2008 by Sen. Jim Risch, who was then governor. The Roadless Rule also does not impact designated wilderness areas, national recreation areas, or parks.
Check out the video below to see me climb to the top of a peak in a roadless area
To show you an example of a roadless area in our region, I climbed up to the top of Sunrise Peak in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington State. From this vantage point, I could see Mt. Adams, Mt. Rainier, and Mt. St. Helen's. This area is known as the Dark Divide, and it features 70,000 acres.
The United States has around 45 million acres of national forest land that is designated as roadless, with around one-third of that being in Alaska. The Roadless Rule was designed to leave wild places intact for the benefit of wildlife and the ecosystem, and the possible removal has conservation groups worried.
"It opens those up to development by logging companies, mining companies, and others," said Lisa Young of the Sierra Club. "We know that for the sake of the environment and for the sake of all of us that recreate that we need to protect rules like that."
Removing the Roadless Rule would return road-making and timber harvesting back to local officials. The head of the forest service has been on the record saying that not managing these areas hasn't worked. Tom Schultz has specifically pointed out wildfires and the difficulty fighting them in roadless areas, as well as not being able to do preventive measures like prescribed burns or logging.
"It just hasn’t worked like they wanted it to work, and that’s because we can’t get in there and manage the forest," said Clete Edmunson of the Associated Logging Contractors of Idaho. "Healthy forests are a beautiful thing that is one thing we can all agree on, and the people who keep our forests healthy are our loggers.”
Edmundson told me the Roadless Rule has hurt the logging industry in Idaho, and he would like to see it removed so that his crews will be able to clear the forest of dead, diseased, and dying trees. An example of this locally is the work the Boise National Forest is currently doing near Bogus Basin.
"People don’t understand that loggers enjoy the woods too," said Edmunson. "We do a good thing, and we are proud of what we do, and we are proud to be part of the solution.”
Idaho features nine million acres of roadless area, and a significant portion of that is located in the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest. The Friends of the Clearwater worry that removing this rule could hurt wildlife, water, and the climate. Conservationists in Idaho also have concerns that if this rule gets rescinded at the national level that it could also happen in Idaho.
"The more of this that gets broken down, the more pressure there is to break things down even more," said Kyran Kunkel of the Friends of the Clearwater. "We need to stand up and speak out for securing conservation because it affects all of us."
The public has until 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on Friday to submit their opinion to the Forest Service. You can do so by clicking here.
