This month celebrates the 25th anniversary of the national Roadless Area Conservation Rule, better known as the Roadless Rule. The Roadless Rule protects 58 million acres of backcountry forestlands from development, including road-building and logging. Specifically, these areas:
- Protect the drinking water of 60 million Americans;
- Protect migration corridors and keep game habitat intact;
- Provide abundant outdoor recreation areas; and
- Provide habitat for endangered, threatened, and sensitive species.
The Roadless Rule is a landmark policy of the US Forest Service that protects the pristine areas we all love. And yet, the Trump administration is attempting to eliminate it. In June 2025, the US Forest Service announced the rescission of the 2001 Roadless Rule, an action that aligns with the administration’s effort to “unleash prosperity through deregulation.” Following a public comment period in September 2025, a Draft Environmental Impact Statement is expected in Spring 2026 that will trigger another public comment period. Once comments are reviewed, a final decision will be made. It’s time to review the rule–and what it does and doesn’t do.
What Defines a Roadless Area
Roadless areas, or Inventoried Roadless Areas (IRAs), are remote, roadless landscapes. They are generally those undeveloped portions of national forests 5,000 acres or larger that are not designated as Wilderness, but that meet minimum criteria for consideration under the Wilderness Act. Most IRAs were identified as undeveloped in an extensive national survey completed in 1979, called the Roadless Area Review and Evaluation.
Currently, about half of US National Forest land is open to drilling, logging, and mining. Another 18% is protected as Wilderness. The remaining 30% is designated as roadless areas. Roadless areas are open to recreational use, including hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding. They also accommodate motorized use by OHVs and snowmobiles–provided that use is consistent with land-use management plans. Existing rights for oil and gas development, mining, and livestock grazing are also allowed.
What the Roadless Rule Protects
Water
Our nation’s roadless areas contain the headwaters of our great rivers and are the largest source of municipal water supply in the nation, serving over 60 million people in 3,400 communities in 33 states. Major US cities including Los Angeles, Portland, Denver, and Atlanta receive a significant portion of their water supply from national forests. Forest roads are the primary source of sediment pollution in streams, which can harm fish habitats and degrade water quality.
Wildlife
Roads fragment habitat and degrade migration corridors that game species like elk and mule deer rely on. Protected roadless areas help ensure these migratory game corridors remain intact and protected from roads and the industrial development roads enable.
Roadless areas are essential to protecting diversity. They provide habitat for endangered, proposed, candidate, and threatened species. More than 1,600 threatened or endangered plant and animal species have been identified on these lands.
Recreation
The national Roadless Rule protects 45 million acres of national forests and includes 25,121 miles of trails; 8,659 climbing routes; 768 miles of whitewater; and 10,794 miles of mountain biking. Large sections of the Continental Divide, Pacific Crest, and Appalachian National Trails traverse protected roadless areas and would be affected by the Rule’s rollback. These lands offer critical space to seek adventure, experience awe, and access remote, backcountry wild landscapes.
These opportunities for recreation have important implications for the economy. In Colorado, outdoor recreationists spent over $52.1 billion dollars on trips and equipment in 2023, contributing to a total economic output of $65.8 billion. Additionally, 96% of Coloradans went outside to recreate with 72% recreating outdoors once or more per week.
These untracked, untrodden, pristine roadless landscapes are an attraction for recreationists of all types—motorized and unmotorized.
No More Roads Needed
The US Forest Service road network includes over 370,000 miles of roads, enough to circle the earth nearly fifteen times. As of 2024, the Forest Service had an estimated $6.4 million backlog on road and bridge maintenance for this existing labyrinth of roads. The agency cannot take care of the roads it already has. Why build more?
The Forest Service, charged with the management of 193 million acres of public lands, is arguably an under-funded agency, and roads are expensive to maintain. Basic rural road maintenance costs $5,000 to $10,000 per mile per year. That means Forest Service roads alone cost between $1.85 and $3.7 billion every year just to stay passable. And those are conservative numbers.
A common argument against the Roadless Rule is that it prevents building roads to fight or suppress wildfire. The Roadless Rule is highly flexible, however, and contains provisions that allow the Forest Service to undertake management decisions regarding fire and other natural disasters. Roads can be built proactively for fires, floods, and other catastrophic events, and for other circumstances like the need to connect communities.
Further, more roads equals more wildfires. Roughly 90% of wildfires are caused by humans. New research shows that from 1992 to 2024, wildfires were four times as likely to start in areas with roads than in roadless forest tracts. Another study showed that more than 90 percent of all wildfires nationwide occurred within half a mile of a road.
The People Have Spoken!
When the Roadless Rule was first passed in 2001, over 600 public hearings were held and 1.6 million comments were submitted—a record at the time. More than 90% of these comments were in favor of the Roadless Rule.
More recently with the announcement of the Rule’s rollback, a three-week public comment period occurred in September 2025. A total of 223,862 comments were posted, with an additional 400,000 comments representing petitions submitted in bulk by conservation groups opposed to the rescission. Analysts found 99% of the comments opposed the Rule’s rescission. The American public is, without doubt, in support of the Roadless Rule.
Colorado’s Roadless Rule
Here’s where it gets a bit confusing. The State of Colorado negotiated a separate “roadless rule” agreement with the US Forest Service to meet its unique needs after extensive statewide stakeholder meetings in the early 2000s. At this time, the proposed national Roadless Rule rescission does NOT affect Colorado’s state specific rule.
Colorado’s Roadless Rule, officially adopted in 2012, protects 4.2 million acres of the state’s national forests. It offers protection to Western Colorado roadless areas such as Pilot Knob, Kannah Creek, Cottonwoods, Currant Creek, Flattops/Elk Park, Salt Creek, Turner Creek, Electric Mountain, and High Tower. Colorado’s District 3, where Delta County is located, contains over 2.6 million acres of roadless areas, or 63% of the state’s roadless areas.
Despite the Colorado rule’s popularity, the Mesa County Board of County Commissioners submitted a letter in September 2025 to USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins advocating for the repeal of the Colorado Roadless Rule in order to coordinate forest health efforts and “to provide better access to protect our communities and water sources.”
One factor that could help Colorado maintain its rule is that “tree cutting and temporary road building near communities to reduce fire hazards” is allowed on 3 million of the 4.2 million roadless acres. Other key points of the Colorado Rule point to its flexibility:
- 1.2 million acres of roadless area are designated “upper tier,” meaning they are especially precious territory and allow fewer exceptions for logging or road-building even to accommodate existing oil and gas leases or highway projects.
- 8,300 acres of the Colorado roadless areas receive no protection, as they are designated for potential ski area expansion and development.
- Temporary coal-mining access roads are allowed on 19,100 acres of roadless areas in the North Fork area of the Gunnison National Forest, near Colorado’s largest remaining coal mine at West Elk.
While Colorado’s Rule is currently NOT threatened, repeal could be initiated by the federal government, as is now happening with the national Roadless Rule.
What You Can Do
Roadless areas protect watersheds, ensuring clean drinking water and a healthy river that supports agriculture and agritourism industries. They provide expansive, continuous wildlife habitat to protect big game, migratory birds, and aquatic species. They form some of our most beloved recreation areas that provide users with a sense of freedom and wildness.
As we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the national Roadless Rule, it is imperative to remain steadfast in support of this landmark Rule. Stay engaged, and be ready to make your voice heard in this upcoming comment period. These roadless areas, although sometimes taken for granted, contribute to rugged, beautiful, and rural ways of life, providing spaces to escape and experience nature. As Aldo Leopold wrote, “Our remaining unroaded wildlands are a national treasure, a ‘wealth to the human spirit’.”
Other Resources
USDA PDF Map of Colorado Roadless Areas
The Wilderness Society Interactive Map of Roadless Areas
US Forest Service Geospatial Discovery Roadless Area Map