This little known rule is a key reason why wild, pristine forests still exist in the US — and it's under threat of repeal under Trump. Here's what you need to know and how to stop Trump.
In addition to commenting to save the Roadless Rule, there's an immediate direct action we can take. The Elwha Legacy Forest Coalition is trying to save the remaining 27 acres of the Twin Waters legacy forest in the Olympic Peninsula from being cut down. $20k for each acre, and they've officially saved 13 acres so far. Please consider donating to help protect this forest.
The artist behind Cassava and Rye, Caroline Hurd wrote, "I love all the forests I've ever been to and all the forests I will never see. May they all remain forests."
I live in the backcountry on forest land. I also hold a degree in forestry. For decades I have bumped heads with BLM for adding new roads. The result of these roads is fragmented wildlife, erosion, trash, and a great potential for wildfires. The value of unroaded wilderness to every citizen can not be truly measured but is clearly better than the alternative.
I've hiked in many beautiful places in the western and eastern US. These areas a precious and need to be protected. Thank you for raising this issue and the way to comment.
Thank you for drawing attention to this issue and thank you for your appreciation of forests and wild lands. We can't let them be plundered by greedy bullies.
Some advice I would add to anyone who cares about the natural world - leave it alone. Don't venture in with a car and trailer. Don't fly to some exotic Central American preserve. US National Parks are becoming parking lots whereas once they were once accessible by train. "Camping" means electric and water hookups to some huge motor home or travel trailer. Tenting is rare and often the tent must be set up next to the air conditioned beasts.
I know this is hard to take but "See the USA in your Chevrolet - America is calling you to drive" sung in the commercial of so long ago when a Chevrolet was lifted by helicopter and placed on top of one of the standing rocks in Monument Valley is bad advice now. "Leave nature alone - stay near home" doesn't sell stuff.
Humanity has swarmed into even the most remote sites. Much is made of tourism helping the natives though it is a love-hate relationship where the natives would far rather have a way to live without the visitors trampling the land.
Nature is being overwhelmed by an irresponsible species. Be the one in a million who is responsible and leave the woods, deserts and wetlands to the species we haven't yet made extinct. We have big high resolution screens that show incredible detail. Use them to watch the amazing nature photography that a very few people can bring out of what is left of the wilds without doing any harm.
The old saying was "take out what you brought in", now it should be "it's their home, leave them alone"
Earthjustice is not just good; it is ESSENTIAL. We need to roll out the heavy artillery in defense of the Roadless Rule - and yes, make it a law, not just a rule the oilygarchs will trample in their stampede to extract every filthy dollar they can from the forest and more importantly what lies beneath all those inconvenient obstructions to the REAL wealth they are just panting to rip from the ground.
I am an environmentalist from way back to when I read Silent Spring as a teen when it was first published. Now, I am so disheartened by the behavior of my fellow Americans who cannot be bothered to do even the simplest things - turn off a light when leaving a room, don't sit in your parked car playing with your phone while letting the engine run, take 1 second to throw something in the recycling bin instead of the trash - that I think the cause is hopeless. Zoos will be the ultimate home for anything larger than, say, a coyote. We will take the kids there to see our relatives on earth pathetically pacing back and forth endlessly in cages or roaming around a full acre (wow!) of land.
We are the one and only species that can be stewards of all life and we have blown it and aren't bothered by it. Where is my Amazon delivery?!
I used to give to the Nature Conservancy. It seemed like a great idea to buy up land to preserve a small environment. Then I realized two things. 1) the climate is changing and will be doing so more rapidly with no end in sight. This means environmental changes across the globe. One can't preserve an environment when a critical part of it, the local climate, is changing beyond control and without limit. 2) a preserved few hundred or a thousand acres surrounded by mankind's built up artificial world does not allow species to migrate with climate change. They are trapped despite our good intentions.
This roadless rule change is simply more Trump insanity from the man who sees nothing of the natural world but the element gold and calls the in-progress scientific fact of climate change a hoax. That is a direct denial of reality but how often is it mentioned when the talking heads of MSM are talking about Trump? Never.
Love is blind and humanity has fallen head over heels in love with technology, blind to nature from which we have come and upon which all depends.
I have been through the same litany of concerns you express. More recently my imagination wrangles with scenarios where disasters globally begin to reduce human resilience. Couple that with the genocidal/ethnic cleansing wars popping up like lethal mushrooms makes me wonder if we are not on a slippery slope of human disintegration. The chaos, the shocks, the displacement are not conducive to long or productive human survivability. I do not expect to survive long enough to actually witness my imaginings. Pity - don't know whether to rejoice or lament.
I am in great anguish over the fates of my grandchildren who will be left to deal with things they had no part in creating and that my generation most certainly did and with blind gusto. I will not be around too many more years (I'm 75) but you are exactly right about multiple crises that essentially boils down to the problem of too many people on a finite planet with each person wanting more and refusing to change lifestyle, even Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk who want more. Bezos dreams of extended lifespan!
The anger at any kind of government regulation is not helping things and the American motto of "nobody is going to tell me what to do" is only hastening our meeting with a brick wall. AI, the astronomical and growing debt of governments and individuals, climate change in progress with no chance of limiting continued fossil fuel use that will make it worse, the ever-present chance of nuclear war, congestion on the roads with people buying bigger cars/pickups, nobody limiting family size. Too many graphs are shooting up asymptotically.
We simply can't control our desires though we live in luxury compared to all in the history of humanity. Fossil fuels provided unlimited energy and technology put it to work giving us about 200 years of running wild. Instead of restraint realizing how good we had it, we gorged on everything, consuming without limit and aren't about to stop. Extreme abnormality is thought normal to everyone alive today. It isn't, as the kids and grandkids will find out.
Thanks for this information! I think we might have more of a chance by inundating congress and senate to codify the Roadless Rule to a full statute, immediately hold hearings, drag out the process. Trump tries to move fast , it needs to be slowed down first. This is likely a bipartisan issue, people of all backgrounds generally like parks, and wildlife.
Thank you for talking about the Roadless Rule. With all the other BS going on, it seems the assault on public lands is falling under the radar. Someone else said it already, More Than Just Parks on substack is a great public lands follow. Thank you, Qasim, for your posts!!
Mapping how the Roadless Rule lets Republican privatize Tongass National Forest to transfer 16 million acres (bigger than 10 U.S. states) to billionaire donors. Public Lands, Private profits.
Think about t the Corperations that are behind THIS. Boycott. Vote progressive. The ham fisted narcissist who rapes 13 year olds... and all the bulls without balls wearing the bronco belts in our China cabinet... are ruining our planet. Roadless matters!
What a great writeup! 💜 We speak for the ones who can’t. Not in human language anyway. The assault on our public lands is unprecedented.
So they are coming for the California old growth Redwoods.
2,500 years old and as much as 350 feet tall.
And they only grow along the coast from Central California to just across the Oregon border.
These sick jerks have NO idea what it is like to walk among those giants alongside ferns up to your shoulder.
In addition to commenting to save the Roadless Rule, there's an immediate direct action we can take. The Elwha Legacy Forest Coalition is trying to save the remaining 27 acres of the Twin Waters legacy forest in the Olympic Peninsula from being cut down. $20k for each acre, and they've officially saved 13 acres so far. Please consider donating to help protect this forest.
https://gofund.me/a94156727
The artist behind Cassava and Rye, Caroline Hurd wrote, "I love all the forests I've ever been to and all the forests I will never see. May they all remain forests."
My daughter lives way up on a mountain in VT. There are paths, not roads. It's scary for me, the city dweller, but also peaceful and beautiful.
I live in the backcountry on forest land. I also hold a degree in forestry. For decades I have bumped heads with BLM for adding new roads. The result of these roads is fragmented wildlife, erosion, trash, and a great potential for wildfires. The value of unroaded wilderness to every citizen can not be truly measured but is clearly better than the alternative.
Done, thank you for the pointer and the easy-to-digest description.
I’ve long supported the NRDC. Thank you for this article. I just sent my public comment.
I've hiked in many beautiful places in the western and eastern US. These areas a precious and need to be protected. Thank you for raising this issue and the way to comment.
Thanks Qasim for speaking up for the people in many ways. If not for you and people like you nobody would be aware of these issues.
Thank you for drawing attention to this issue and thank you for your appreciation of forests and wild lands. We can't let them be plundered by greedy bullies.
Thank you for amplifying this. So important
Earthjustice is good.
Some advice I would add to anyone who cares about the natural world - leave it alone. Don't venture in with a car and trailer. Don't fly to some exotic Central American preserve. US National Parks are becoming parking lots whereas once they were once accessible by train. "Camping" means electric and water hookups to some huge motor home or travel trailer. Tenting is rare and often the tent must be set up next to the air conditioned beasts.
I know this is hard to take but "See the USA in your Chevrolet - America is calling you to drive" sung in the commercial of so long ago when a Chevrolet was lifted by helicopter and placed on top of one of the standing rocks in Monument Valley is bad advice now. "Leave nature alone - stay near home" doesn't sell stuff.
Humanity has swarmed into even the most remote sites. Much is made of tourism helping the natives though it is a love-hate relationship where the natives would far rather have a way to live without the visitors trampling the land.
Nature is being overwhelmed by an irresponsible species. Be the one in a million who is responsible and leave the woods, deserts and wetlands to the species we haven't yet made extinct. We have big high resolution screens that show incredible detail. Use them to watch the amazing nature photography that a very few people can bring out of what is left of the wilds without doing any harm.
The old saying was "take out what you brought in", now it should be "it's their home, leave them alone"
Earthjustice is not just good; it is ESSENTIAL. We need to roll out the heavy artillery in defense of the Roadless Rule - and yes, make it a law, not just a rule the oilygarchs will trample in their stampede to extract every filthy dollar they can from the forest and more importantly what lies beneath all those inconvenient obstructions to the REAL wealth they are just panting to rip from the ground.
I am an environmentalist from way back to when I read Silent Spring as a teen when it was first published. Now, I am so disheartened by the behavior of my fellow Americans who cannot be bothered to do even the simplest things - turn off a light when leaving a room, don't sit in your parked car playing with your phone while letting the engine run, take 1 second to throw something in the recycling bin instead of the trash - that I think the cause is hopeless. Zoos will be the ultimate home for anything larger than, say, a coyote. We will take the kids there to see our relatives on earth pathetically pacing back and forth endlessly in cages or roaming around a full acre (wow!) of land.
We are the one and only species that can be stewards of all life and we have blown it and aren't bothered by it. Where is my Amazon delivery?!
I used to give to the Nature Conservancy. It seemed like a great idea to buy up land to preserve a small environment. Then I realized two things. 1) the climate is changing and will be doing so more rapidly with no end in sight. This means environmental changes across the globe. One can't preserve an environment when a critical part of it, the local climate, is changing beyond control and without limit. 2) a preserved few hundred or a thousand acres surrounded by mankind's built up artificial world does not allow species to migrate with climate change. They are trapped despite our good intentions.
This roadless rule change is simply more Trump insanity from the man who sees nothing of the natural world but the element gold and calls the in-progress scientific fact of climate change a hoax. That is a direct denial of reality but how often is it mentioned when the talking heads of MSM are talking about Trump? Never.
Love is blind and humanity has fallen head over heels in love with technology, blind to nature from which we have come and upon which all depends.
I have been through the same litany of concerns you express. More recently my imagination wrangles with scenarios where disasters globally begin to reduce human resilience. Couple that with the genocidal/ethnic cleansing wars popping up like lethal mushrooms makes me wonder if we are not on a slippery slope of human disintegration. The chaos, the shocks, the displacement are not conducive to long or productive human survivability. I do not expect to survive long enough to actually witness my imaginings. Pity - don't know whether to rejoice or lament.
I am in great anguish over the fates of my grandchildren who will be left to deal with things they had no part in creating and that my generation most certainly did and with blind gusto. I will not be around too many more years (I'm 75) but you are exactly right about multiple crises that essentially boils down to the problem of too many people on a finite planet with each person wanting more and refusing to change lifestyle, even Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk who want more. Bezos dreams of extended lifespan!
The anger at any kind of government regulation is not helping things and the American motto of "nobody is going to tell me what to do" is only hastening our meeting with a brick wall. AI, the astronomical and growing debt of governments and individuals, climate change in progress with no chance of limiting continued fossil fuel use that will make it worse, the ever-present chance of nuclear war, congestion on the roads with people buying bigger cars/pickups, nobody limiting family size. Too many graphs are shooting up asymptotically.
We simply can't control our desires though we live in luxury compared to all in the history of humanity. Fossil fuels provided unlimited energy and technology put it to work giving us about 200 years of running wild. Instead of restraint realizing how good we had it, we gorged on everything, consuming without limit and aren't about to stop. Extreme abnormality is thought normal to everyone alive today. It isn't, as the kids and grandkids will find out.
Thanks for this information! I think we might have more of a chance by inundating congress and senate to codify the Roadless Rule to a full statute, immediately hold hearings, drag out the process. Trump tries to move fast , it needs to be slowed down first. This is likely a bipartisan issue, people of all backgrounds generally like parks, and wildlife.
Thank you for talking about the Roadless Rule. With all the other BS going on, it seems the assault on public lands is falling under the radar. Someone else said it already, More Than Just Parks on substack is a great public lands follow. Thank you, Qasim, for your posts!!
Mapping how the Roadless Rule lets Republican privatize Tongass National Forest to transfer 16 million acres (bigger than 10 U.S. states) to billionaire donors. Public Lands, Private profits.
https://thedemlabs.org/2026/08/24/tongass-national-forest-land-grab/
https://arcg.is/04T4Ge2
Think about t the Corperations that are behind THIS. Boycott. Vote progressive. The ham fisted narcissist who rapes 13 year olds... and all the bulls without balls wearing the bronco belts in our China cabinet... are ruining our planet. Roadless matters!