Speak up for Roadless Areas in Hells Canyon and beyond

Enjoying wildflowers as we hike into the Joseph Creek Roadless Area

Bad news, friends. The Trump administration’s Secretary of Agriculture rescinded the Roadless Rule this week. This rule came about during the Clinton administration and protects over 50 million acres of precious backcountry areas around the country. This includes at least 696,400 acres of incredibly valuable lands around our mission area. You can see an interactive map of places this would apply to in Eastern Oregon area below.

Our Roadless Areas are invaluable. Making up only 9% of federal public lands, they provide tens of millions of Americans with clean drinking water, are critical wildlife habitat and migration corridors, and protect many of the special places we love to camp, hike, hunt, fish, and explore with our families.

What’s on the chopping block in our mission area?

This rough map shows Roadless Areas (red) in our mission area that would be open to logging, road building, and development if this rule is rescinded. This includes:

• 320,766 acres around Hells Canyon, including 24,288 in Joseph Canyon

• 99,566 acres around the Eagle Cap Wilderness

• 29,031 acres around the Wild & Scenic Grande Ronde River

• 75,795 acres above the Grande Ronde Valley in Mount Emily and NF Umatilla country

• 24,786 acres in the Grande Ronde headwaters including Beaver Creek

• 66,998 acres outside of Baker City including nearly all of the Elkhorns 

• 49,910 acres around the North Fork John Day

• 29,548 acres in the Middle Fork and mainstem John Day headwaters country

How can I take action?

These protections are administrative, meaning they came about through a presidential action and not through Congress, which unfortunately means that this reversal of protections may technically be legal. There will be a rulemaking process with public comment periods to follow. In the meantime, there is an opportunity to protect these lands PERMANENTLY. A bill currently exists in both the Senate and the House called the Roadless Area Conservation Act which would permanently protect these roadless areas.

Our Senators and Representatives need to hear from us on this, too! Please take 5 minutes to call on these two public lands issues, and you can submit a virtual message on the Roadless Area Conservation Act here.