Paving paradise: Dismantling the US Roadless Rule threatens to disrupt wildlife, water and peace in the last quiet places in America

Pause for a moment and listen. What do you hear? Chances are, somewhere in the background, is the ever-present hum of a road. More than 4.2 million miles of public roads crisscross the lower 48 states – enough to reach the Moon and back almost nine times. This vast network of roads spiderwebs its way across the contiguous U.S., leaving only about 5% as an inventoried roadless area or wilderness. Now, some of those last remaining lands free of roads are under threat from the Trump administration’s proposed rollback of the 2001 Roadless Rule. That includes southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, where eagles, bears, salmon and many other species thrive in old-growth coastal forest along the Inside Passage. In announcing its plan, the administration said rescinding the rule would remove prohibitions on road construction and logging on nearly 59 million acres of national forest, arguing that the rule slowed economic development. In Congress, another effort is underway to try to change the law through an amendment to the Wildfire Prevention Act. That change, if approved, would both remove the Roadless Rule and prevent the U.S. Forest Service from reinstituting it in the future, despite overwhelming public support for the rule.…

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