It seems that everywhere you look these days, there’s a new political scheme threatening our federally managed public lands. Whether it’s the House of Representatives upending protections put in place by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) or the recent repurposing of the popular Land and Water Conservation Fund, it’s daunting to keep up with. But if there’s one issue that commands your attention right now, it’s the Trump Administration's plan to rescind the Roadless Rule.
The Roadless Rule is one of the most important safeguards we have for the best remaining fish and wildlife habitat on America’s public lands. Since 2001, the rule has blocked new road construction and commercial-scale logging on some 58 million acres of backcountry managed by the United States Forest Service (USFS).
But how does the Roadless Rule benefit hunters and anglers specifically? In Montana, where I live, there are more than 6.3 million acres of inventoried roadless areas, and they’re known for some of the best mule deer and elk hunting in the West. In Utah, 80 percent of the state’s critical mule deer habitat is located in roughly 4 million roadless acres. That’s because muleys and elk benefit a great deal from unfragmented, undeveloped backcountry. And study after study shows that, when new roads go in, these highly attuned migratory big game animals move out.
But deer and elk aren’t the only iconic game species that have proliferated on public land in recent decades thanks to protected roadless habitat. In West Virginia’s Mongohela National Forest, for example, roadless areas are critical for native brook trout, according to Trout Unlimited, which vehemently opposes the Administration's plan to scrap the Roadless Rule. And in New Hampshire, 90 percent of the state's native brookies are contained inside 200,000 roadless acres in the White Mountains National Forest. Then there’s Southeast Alaska, where roadless areas in the Tongass National Forest protect the cold, clean water needed for some of the best salmon and steelhead populations in the world. The stats on roadless areas go on like that, in state after state where the federal government manages public land, from California’s Klamath National Forest to North Carolina’s Pisgah.
"These are the areas that give you the most high quality hunting and fishing experiences," Corey Fisher, TU's public lands policy director, tells Field & Stream. "And these places are accessible, places where you can get to a trailhead, hike in a half-hour and be in the middle of bugling bulls or native trout streams. These are the places that the everyday weekend warrior can get into and have a once-in-a-lifetime experience."
So why would we eliminate a rule with such a good track record of protecting the game and fish we love? Put simply, hunters and anglers haven’t been given a seat at the decision-making table. Groups from Backcountry Hunters and Anglers to Trout Unlimited to the National Wildlife Federation have been decrying the plan since it was announced in June. But USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins is pushing ahead despite the opposition—even going so far as to call the Roadless Rule “an absurd obstacle to common sense management” in a June 23 press release.
Rollins claims the rule impedes the USDA’s ability to fight fire and thin timber, and that it blocks Americans’ access to their national forest while posing “real harm to millions of acres of our national forests.” But according to TU, hazardous fuels reduction projects, which help mitigate wildlife, are common in Roadless Areas. And there are exceptions for building roads in these protected areas whenever wildfire threatens public safety.
TU also points out that wildfire—often human-caused—is more frequently ignited in the heavily-roaded front country than it is in the protected roadless areas. And when it comes to motorized access, the Roadless Rule’s name is a bit of a misnomer. In fact, there are over 9,000 miles of motorized trails across 12 western states located within roadless areas, TU says. The Roadless Rule blocks new roads from being built, but it doesn’t prohibit access to motorized trails that already exist inside inventoried Roadless Areas. (If you'd like to explore Roadless Areas near you, use this handy GIS mapper from Trout Unlimited.)
Read Next: Trump Administration to Revoke Roadless Rule Protections on 58 Million Acres of Public Land
Late last month, the Administration gave the hunting and fishing community, and the rest of the public, an unusually short window to weigh in this issue via public comments. This portion of the planning process, known as the scoping phase, opened on August 27 and will close on September 19, just a few days from now. If you want to contact the USDA about the importance of the Roadless Rule—whether for the cold, clean water that supports salmon and trout fisheries, the unbroken backcountry that sustains deer and elk herds, or the general sense of solitude that public lands without road building and commercial-scale logging can provide—now is your chance to do so. Another comment period is likely next spring with a final decision on whether or not rescind the Roadless Rules coming by the end of 2026.
