Why Roadless Areas Matter: The Saga Continues

Across the Greater Hells Canyon Region, roadless landscapes define some of the last truly wild country left in the lower 48. Many of them surround areas designated as Wilderness - Eagle Cap, Hells Canyon, etc., contain precious low-elevation forests, and act as the connective tissue that make up migration corridors. From an outright selloff to easing of regulations, getting public lands into the hands of industry has been a priority of the current administration. Repealing the Roadless Rule is the next step in that plan. 

You may already know about Inventoried Roadless Areas (IRAs) and the history of the Roadless Rule, but I am just learning, so follow along with me as I put the pieces together. In a recent conversation with our Conservation Director, Jamie Dawson, she told me that to lose the protection provided by the Roadless Rule is one of the absolute top, huge, would-be-disastrous things we could be facing as an organization. Inventoried Roadless Areas protected by the Roadless Rule make up almost half (44%) of the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area and safeguard countless other precious landscapes in our region, like Joseph Canyon (pictured below) and the Elkhorn Crest.

Roadless Areas under threat in our mission area

GHCC has a long history of fighting to expand protections for wild places by highlighting the values of undesignated wild places as a way of advocating for more Wilderness Areas. When I say this, I mean capital “W” Wilderness is designated and legally protected by Congress with rules that must be followed according to law. Since these Roadless Areas were protected by Presidential action instead of Congressional action, we are now on the defensive - big time. Push has come to shove, and it’s time to take action to protect IRAs in our region.

A photo of the Lake Fork roadless area taken through Jamie Dawson's binoculars.

For the Uninitiated - What Are Inventoried Roadless Areas?

IRAs are National Forest lands that the U.S. Forest Service identified as having wilderness characteristics. This means large, undeveloped, and relatively untouched by roads - or, where roads do exist, they are mostly untrafficked and/or out of commission. Unlike official Wilderness Areas, which receive permanent protection through an act of Congress, IRAs are managed under the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule - a rule appointed by presidential action (colloquially referred to as the “Roadless Rule”).

This rule prohibits new road construction and logging in the areas that fall under it, recognizing that once roads are built, the ecological impacts are lasting and often irreversible. In short, IRAs serve as a safeguard for preserving wild places, even if they are not formally designated as Wilderness Areas.

If it’s Not Already Clear, Let’s Go Farther - Why are Roadless Areas So Important?

How can we assign value to invaluable wild places so that the value-focused will understand? These days, it feels like we’re fighting for the very heart and soul of our environment and having to remind those who would exploit it that we are not separate from or “above” it. We are part of it. I never understand how the importance of wild places can be dismissed. In January, when the shit was not yet fully hitting the fan, I went for a walk and saw a filthy, dried-out, and abandoned fish tank in a neighbor’s driveway. It made me think that somehow our own habitat/environment is being regarded in a similarly disposable way. As if we could artificially recreate it once we've damaged it beyond repair. I'm not one who believes that clean water, oxygen, and food flakes can be manufactured to replace what we’ve lost. We are not separate from our environment; we are part of it! We exist here alongside our fellows: the big, old trees, the disappearing salmon, and the wild waters on which all life depends.

Getting back to the elephant of an issue at hand, Roadless Areas provide a vital buffer of wildness, surrounding, strengthening, and protecting designated Wilderness. If we allow their degradation, we risk creating ecological islands where plants, animals, and waters are cut off from one another. Think of the childhood game “the floor is lava”: movement between safe places becomes harder and harder. In the same way, wildlife needs connected landscapes to survive and thrive.

A photo capture of an elk calf nursery sheltering in the Blues - This is a temporary social group of cow elk and young calves that seclude themselves until the young are ready to rejoin the herd.

Here in Hells Canyon and across the Blue Mountains, IRAs are essential to the health of entire ecosystems. They provide:

Clean water: Roadless areas protect headwaters, filtering and storing water that human, animal, and plant communities depend upon. In our region, there are Roadless Areas that contain drinking watersheds for cities like Walla Walla, Baker City, and La Grande. Clean drinking water is of vital importance. Many Roadless Areas in our region also drain into larger rivers like the Grande Ronde, providing cool, clean water during the summer, and their wildness offers calmer waters for fish to escape to during high water seasons.

Habitat security: As we’ve learned from the Forest Service’s own research, animals need landscapes without roads to be successful. IRAs shelter species sensitive to disturbance, including salmon, steelhead, elk, and bighorn sheep. The Blue Mountain Ecoregion already has over 26,000 miles of road - for context, this is enough road to drive around the entire planet! Having IRAs is absolutely critical for habitat security.

Carbon storage: By limiting development and logging, roadless forests continue to absorb and store carbon, buffering us against climate change. The basic logic here is that big trees store a lot of carbon! Protected forests = big carbon storage capacity. If we’re talking about resources and their assigned value, this one should be easy to get behind. Trees make this earth habitable for us by using/storing carbon. You can read more about the basics on our blog. 

Recreation and solitude: Are you someone who recreates in the wilderness? Do you enjoy hiking, hunting, fishing, and connecting with the natural world? While we are talking about the absolutely essential functions of IRAs, we also need to say that these places offer the opportunity for people to experience and learn about the importance of wild places. Unroaded areas provide important access for local communities, and the Blue Mountains Trail connects many of them! To read about the Roadless Rule’s impact on the BMT more specifically, check out this blog on how the repeal of the Roadless Rule would affect the BMT by Trails Coordinator Pip Redding.

"Migrations in Motion" is a project by the University of Washington and The Nature Conservancy that illustrates how mammals, birds, and amphibians move through a landscape - in this case, the Blue Mountains.

Roadless Areas and Habitat Connectivity

One of the most critical functions of IRAs is their role in maintaining habitat connectivity - a topic central to GHCC’s mission. Roadless Areas close some of the gaps between Wilderness Areas, stitching together habitat for wildlife movement. Animals need the ability to move freely across landscapes to find food, adapt to seasonal changes, and respond to a warming climate. Research shows that large, unfragmented habitats, like those safeguarded by the Roadless Rule, are key connectivity corridors linking ecosystems together. Without them, animals face higher risks of isolation, genetic decline, and extinction. A fragmented landscape means fragmented habitat, and public lands in the Blues are already dealing with a massive existing road network! Though it would be amazing to permanently protect these wilderness-quality lands, for now, we must ensure that they survive this administration! 

Especially for our wide-ranging friends like wolverines, salmon, and steelhead that depend on intact watersheds, IRAs are lifelines. In Hells Canyon, these connected landscapes are what allow native species to survive and adapt in the face of rapid environmental change.

So What’s at Stake?

Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, the Roadless Rule has faced repeated political attacks since its creation. If protections are weakened or eliminated, logging roads could carve into these places, permanently throwing open the door to fragmentation, erosion, and loss of critical habitat. For a region as wild and remote as Hells Canyon, the impacts would be immediate, devastating, and far-reaching. I’d like to reiterate Jamie’s warning here - this would have disastrous consequences for the wild lands and waters of the Blue Mountains eco-region and all life that depends on it. As an organization working to safeguard wild places, this is the stuff of nightmares. 

What You Can Do

The future of Inventoried Roadless Areas will be decided by the voices that speak up for them. As an organization, we believe these lands are essential to the ecological and cultural fabric of the Greater Hells Canyon Region (and beyond!). Protecting them means protecting the foundation of our mission: a landscape where wild rivers, wildlife, and human communities can thrive together.

The public comment period for repealing the Roadless Rule is live now. Your voice matters for Hells Canyon, for the Blue Mountains, and for the roadless wildlands that remain.

How to Comment

Option 1:

If you have one minute or less, you can sign the pre-written comment that we’ve created below. There is an option to add a few sentences of your own to the bottom, so please do! A unique comment is incredibly helpful.

Option 2:

If you have five minutes, please take the time to submit an individual comment through the Forest Service portal here. Feel free to use the text below, but please personalize it with your own details. Even a few sentences about who you are, where you live, and why you love these places (hike with my family, hunt with friends, etc.) will make a difference. Dear U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins: 

I’m writing to oppose the proposed repeal of the Roadless Rule, which protects important backcountry landscapes on over 58 million acres of public lands across the country. In the Greater Hells Canyon Region, it safeguards many incredible landscapes, including the expansive benches above Hells Canyon, the granite peaks of the Elkhorn Crest, the rugged depths of Joseph Canyon, and the incredible forests at the foot of the Eagle Cap Wilderness. 

Removing protections for these landscapes would be catastrophic. In the Blue Mountains, we already have over 26,000 miles of roads, enough to drive around the entire planet! These places were set aside intentionally, and in the intervening years, they have more than proven their worth. We hike, hunt, birdwatch, forage, and explore Roadless Areas with our families. They provide clean drinking water to our communities, and deliver cool water to our rivers late into the summer when our struggling salmon and steelhead need it most.

Roadless Areas represent just 9% of all federal public lands, and they serve a number of unique purposes in an increasingly overburdened multi-use landscape. We must continue allowing them to play those roles. Do not repeal the roadless rule.

Thank you.