For release: Updated August 18, 2026
Contact: David Mildrexler, dmildrexler@pfpi.net
Update: Fiscally Misguided and Ecologically Flawed Plan to Rescind Roadless Rule Moves Forward: Comment Period Open Until Sept. 21
The U.S. Forest Service has filed a draft environmental impact statement to rescind the Roadless Rule. Recent research has conclusively shown that roads increase the risk of fire, and that Inventoried Roadless Areas are absolutely crucial to our nation’s drinking water supplies. They are among the highest integrity forest ecosystems in the nation, providing habitat that is critical to wildlife, and sought after by hunters and anglers, and millions of Americans who enjoy and cherish our backcountry heritage. And the American people strongly support the Roadless Rule. These places are worth fighting for. Please see PFPI’s research paper and summary below and make your voice heard.
To comment on the proposed rule and draft environmental impact statement, go to Regulations.gov. Public comments must be received by midnight on Sept. 21.
New Analysis Measures Benefits of Intact, Roadless Forests
Points to Costs, Dangers of Rolling Back “Roadless Rule”
Amherst, Mass. – A new analysis of forests in the United States uses a “forest integrity score” to measure the value of intact, unroaded forests versus those impacted by road building and other human activities that degrade forests. The research finds that those values and related ecosystem services such as clean abundant water, biodiversity, cultural significance, and climate regulation are significantly higher in more intact forests, which are also associated with lower wildfire incidence. The peer-reviewed study, “Roadless rule rescission threatens highest integrity forest ecosystems in the United States,” appears in the September 2026 issue of Biological Conservation. (See article abstract below.)
“We wanted to focus on roadless areas, on how they function and benefit people, and how they compare to forests that have been degraded by road building and logging,” said David Mildrexler, US Director of Science and Policy at the Partnership for Policy Integrity and lead author of the study. “We found that the roadless areas the Trump administration wants to open up to road building for logging and other development have integrity scores that are similar to, or frequently higher than, protected areas like Wilderness, national parks and wildlife refuges. These remaining roadless areas have enormous ecological value.”
The analysis examines the ecosystem integrity of Inventoried Roadless Areas (IRAs), approximately 58 million acres of the National Forest System (NFS) that were identified, inventoried, and found to be free of roads and are currently protected by the Roadless Area Conservation Rule (“Roadless Rule”). The analysis uses the Forest Landscape Integrity Index (FLII), which describes the degree of modification of forests due to human pressures such as infrastructure, agriculture, tree cover loss, proximity to those pressures and loss of forest connectivity. It finds that IRAs have the highest scores in the nation (a median forest integrity score of 9.5), whereas unprotected national forests have much lower scores (median 8.0) even when compared to unprotected forests outside national forests.
The authors discuss several ecosystem services and social values of IRAs and the risks of rescinding the Roadless Rule that protects them, including:
Exceptional water values
- Forests and water are an integrated system; native forests and soils are particularly important for water flows and supplies.
- IRAs supply water that contributes drinking water supplies to millions of Americans in both the Western and Eastern US.
- IRAs help sustain ecosystems and economies as their streams retain, filter, and slowly release water throughout the year that is valuable for fisheries, cultural values, recreation and agriculture.
- Roads and their effects are one of the greatest sources of aquatic degradation.
- Water quality impaired by road systems and forest loss may require expensive restoration or water treatment systems to accomplish what intact watersheds do for free.
More roads lead to more wildfires
- Human-started wildfires are an increasingly costly and a dominant driver of fire regimes in the US, and human-related ignitions are concentrated near forest roads. During a recent period, human-caused wildfire ignitions accounted for 84% of all wildfires.
- Roadless areas currently have one of the lowest density of wildfire ignitions across all US Forest Service areas.
- Roads are strongly associated with the spread of invasive plant species that provide highly flammable vegetation to dry roadsides, where human-ignitions most frequently occur.
- Keeping IRAs intact and free from roads and emphasizing natural processes in these areas is an efficient, cost-effective, fire risk-reduction management strategy.
“If this change goes through, taxpayers will be footing the bill to build destructive roads that no one needs,” said Mildrexler. “The USFS logging program already loses money every year.” He continued, “Building roads into these incredibly valuable and irreplaceable ecosystems would be all cost, no benefit. We could never undo the damage they would cause.”
Abstract
Earth’s intact forests provide globally significant ecosystem services to humanity, but to maintain these services it is crucial to protect intact forests from road building and other types of anthropogenic degradation. In the United States, some of the most important intact forests were designated as Inventoried Roadless Areas (IRAs) in 2001 under the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The current US administration wants to roll back designation of IRAs, arguing it is necessary for wildfire prevention and timber production. Here, we examine the integrity of forests within and outside IRAs, review the importance of intact forests and IRAs, and critique the arguments put forward to justify rescission of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. We find IRAs have among the highest integrity forests in the nation, often rivaling even protected areas. Consequently, IRAs provide higher levels of many forest benefits, such as healthy watersheds and clean water, forest-dependent biodiversity, traditional forest use and cultural values, and climate regulation. Building roads into IRAs will degrade these forest ecosystem functions, increase fire risk, and is grossly uneconomic, especially given the Forest Service’s current $10.8 billion backlog in deferred maintenance.
Find the open access article in Biological Conservation: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2026.111950
More about the Roadless Area Conservation Rule: https://www.fs.usda.gov/managing-land/planning/roadless
The Partnership for Policy Integrity (PFPI), founded in 2010, uses data-driven advocacy and litigation to fight for forests, communities, and the climate. It provides science and legal support so that citizen groups, environmental organizations, and policymakers can better understand energy development impacts on air quality, water quality, ecosystems, and climate. More at https://www.pfpi.net/.
