Shh … If you’re quiet you may just hear it.
A trout slipping beneath the surface of a cold stream in Wyoming’s Shoshone National Forest. Towering pines swaying overhead in the wind of Oregon’s Willamette National Forest. A bear nosing through underbrush, grunting at the sight of an untouched blueberry patch in New Hampshire’s White Mountain National Forest. The unforgettable bugle of a bull elk echoing past the trees in Colorado’s San Juan National Forest. Owls and other birds fluttering across the canopy of Tongass National Forest, their sonorous calls reverberating through the serene silence.
Far from the sound of heavy trucks, free from the fear of bulldozers and chainsaws — these are America’s Roadless Rule forests, some of the last truly wild places left in the country.
These are public lands where Americans camp with their friends and families in the backcountry, cast fishing lines into swift currents, or just lie on their backs to gaze in awe at a quiet night full of innumerable stars.
But soon these cherished places could be permanently altered.
In June 2025, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced plans to rescind the Roadless Rule , opening the door to road-building and industrial development across 45 million acres of previously protected forest. If the rollback succeeds, much of what makes these places special could be lost forever.
What Is the Roadless Rule?
For more than two decades, these places have been protected by one of the most important conservation policies in U.S. history, the Roadless Rule.
Enacted in 2001, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule (Roadless Rule) designated forests across the country as “inventoried roadless areas,” prohibiting the building of — you guessed it, new roads — but also logging and other harmful industries on these lands.
This U.S. Forest Service regulation was put in place to preserve parts of our National Forest network, and ensure that these places of great ecological and recreational value remain open, accessible and mostly unchanged.
The rule protects 58.5 million acres of national forest spanning 39 states, ranging from Alaska to New Mexico, Oregon to Florida.
What makes Roadless Rule forests special
From the green vistas of Oregon’s Rogue River–Siskiyou National Forest to the rolling hardwoods of Appalachia, these intact forest areas represent some of the last intact stretches of our nation’s wild land.
But, what makes these places so special isn’t just their natural beauty, it’s what that beauty harbors. These forests help keep rivers and streams clean. They cleanse the air we breathe and help form our atmosphere. They provide shelter for wild animals from grizzly bears to ladybugs, from ring-necked pheasants to woodland voles and everything in between. And best of all, these forests belong to each and every one of us.
They are, as former Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck put it, a “down payment on the well-being of future generations.”
Why these forests matter
Step into a wild forest and you’ll notice something is different. This isn’t just scenery, a cool place to hike or a good view for an Instagram post — it’s an ecosystem, a deeply complex and interconnected one.
Rare and elusive species: wolverines, Canada lynx, grizzly bears, cougars, wolves, all depend on these large, undisturbed habitats to survive. The thick underbrush provides hunting cover for predators, dense canopies shelter birds and their nests, lichen and shrubs feed elk and deer, shaded streams flow undisturbed by sediment for native fish like trout and salmon. The lack of roads keeps habitats unfragmented and preserves ancient migration routes.
Roadless areas in forests shelter more than 220 species that are threatened, endangered or proposed for Endangered Species Act protection.
These forests bring us closer to the natural world too. In these forests there is less toxic runoff leaching into streams, less light blotting out the stars, fewer unnatural noises disturbing sensitive wildlife. Here, the forests, their inhabitants and their ecosystems operate as they should, and have for untold millennia.
And for people, these places are a gift, clean air, clear water, abundant wildlife, a place of silent reflection and an opportunity to truly get away.
A place for recreation and stewardship
On top of their vital ecological importance, these wild forests offer a plethora of chances for recreation, from hiking and cycling, to camping and hunting, to paddling and fishing—roadless forests have a place to do it all
These forests offer over thousands of miles of trails to run, hike and cycle, offering endless adventure to backpackers, hikers and bikers.
Roadless areas like the Chugach National Forest also promote healthy wildlife and fish populations, conserving the resources that hunters and anglers rely on. Without roads fragmenting habitat, deer and elk have more room to roam and trout streams run cleaner.
Rescinding the Roadless Rule would be a major blow for the hunters, anglers, hikers and countless other people who rely on these places to access the great outdoors and the way of life they make possible.
For many rural places, roadless forests, and the recreation they allow, represent tradition and community: the fall white-tail hunt with your buddies, your kid’s first cast into a shaded pool, your weekend runs on the trail, the annual family camping trip, finally earning your in-law’s respect by hooking an elusive brown trout.
What we stand to lose
Rescinding the Roadless Rule could unleash destruction on a truly tragic scale.
Just imagine what we stand to lose.
A grove of towering firs felled for timber. The chorus of warblers, robins and owls that lived among its branches silenced.
A wolf den trampled beneath machinery. A chipmunk hole clogged with sawdust. Clear streams, once teeming with trout, turtles and frogs, turned murky with sediment.
What once was a home to countless animals, what once sheltered vast biodiversity, what once stood tall and proud for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, reduced to a clearcut wasteland.
Across forty-five million acres and 37 states.
And once it’s lost, the wild character of these forests will take decades to fully restore.
This land is your land
Nearly half of all national forest visitors live within 50 miles of the lands they explore. These places aren’t distant or abstract, they are a fundamental and historic part of our communities, our childhoods, our traditions and our homes.
From seasoned hunters to weekend hikers, from red states to blue, this isn’t about partisanship or politics. It’s about keeping what’s wild … wild. And ensuring that future generations see what we were lucky enough to witness: silent, beautiful wilderness.
Forests can’t speak for themselves, but we can
These are some of the quietest places left in America, but right now they need the loudest voices.
If we want our children to glimpse a fox’s track in the snow, watch a bald eagle dive into a river for a meal, or step through a forest unscarred by machinery, we must act.
The Roadless Rule isn’t just policy. It’s a promise.
A promise that some places are too wild, too precious, too important to cut down. A promise that some silences should be left unbroken.
These forests are a legacy for the people we’ll leave behind, a reflection on the character of our time. Will we preserve these special places, not just for our children, but for all life that will one day call America home? Or we will carve through, tear down, rip up and scar these places, our legacy, beyond recognition?
Now is the time to speak up in defense of millions of acres of wild forest and the Roadless Rule that preserves them, a legacy that should be left for, and by, each and every one of us.
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Ellen runs campaigns to protect America’s beautiful places, from local beachfronts to remote mountain peaks. She sits on the Steering Committee of the Arctic Defense Campaign and co-coordinates the Climate Forests Campaign. Ellen previously worked as the organizing director for Environment America’s Climate Defenders campaign and managed grassroots campaign offices across the country. Ellen lives in Denver, where she likes to hike in Colorado’s mountains.
