Overview
- The American Hiking Society filed formal comments with the Forest Service and joined more than 200 groups in urging the agency to select the No Action alternative and retain the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.
- The Roadless Rule currently limits new roads and large-scale timber or energy projects across about 45 million acres of national forest backcountry that the comment letter says have been kept intact by those limits.
- Data cited by the coalition, drawn from AllTrails and Outdoor Alliance, show more than 25,000 miles of trails and 5,651 trail routes in roadless areas and roughly three million hours of recent recreation that help support rural businesses.
- The Forest Service’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement acknowledges that increased road construction and timber harvest could reduce primitive and semi‑primitive recreation settings and cause economic losses tied to outdoor recreation.
- The rulemaking remains in the public‑comment DEIS phase and the Forest Service must now review feedback and choose among alternatives, a decision that will determine whether national trails, local recreation access, and rural tourism face long‑term change.