National Forest roadless areas contain irreplaceable reserves of wildlife habitat and plant life, and perform many valuable ecosystem services used by all Americans. These wild areas also play an esteemed role in our national identity and history, with interest in their protection dating back to the early 1970s. Despite their importance, National Forest roadless areas have been increasingly threatened by careless road building and inappropriate management for resource extraction purposes. Nation-wide, the USDA Forest Service has over 378,000 miles of roads with a substantial backlog of road maintenance needs. Meanwhile, since the 1970s, about 1 million acres of roadless areas have been logged each year adding to an already over burdened road repair backlog and reducing ecosystem services provided by intact forests.
Recognizing these problems, the USDA Forest Service adopted the Roadless Area Conservation Rule on January 12, 2001 to protect inventoried roadless areas totaling 58.5 million acres, an area roughly the size of New York and Pennsylvania. This rule, enacted by executive order of President Clinton, was intended to carefully regulate road construction in roadless areas. On the same day, the USDA Forest Service adopted a Transportation Policy that contained additional protections for roadless areas.
