The Roadless Rule protects nearly 58.5 million acres of America’s national forests—including some of California’s most beloved backcountry—from fragmentation and mismanaged timber harvesting. Adopted in 2001 after one of the largest public comment processes in U.S. history, the rule remains one of the nation’s most popular forest conservation measures.
When implemented, more than 95% of the 1.6 million comments collected spoke in favor of this rule that helps ensure habitat connectivity, clean water, and outstanding recreational opportunities in our national forests.
Despite its broad public support, the Trump administration has not only kickstarted a process to rescind the Roadless Rule, but Representative Hageman (R-WY) introduced a Roadless Rule-Killing bill in the House, while Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced an effort to overturn the Rule in the Senate by tacking an amendment onto a wildfire bill. These shady backdoor policy efforts subvert normal process and public involvement to jam through unpopular legislation that could open millions of acres of national forest to new road construction, logging, and other development.
In response, CalWild and partners have been collecting public comments in support of the rule and hosting Roadless Rule events, including town halls and rallies, across California to help people understand what’s at stake and how they can speak up for the forests they love. We have generated more than 600,000 public comments, thousands of social media posts and gotten nearly 650 media hits, as well as talk show hosts like Joe Rogan who has come out swinging in favor of the Roadless Rule and opposing the recent attacks against it.
Nine+ events have already taken place—from Orange County and Los Angeles to Ojai, Rocklin, and Lake Tahoe—bringing together hikers, mountain bikers, hunters, anglers, scientists, business owners, and community members united by one goal: protecting California’s roadless forests.
The Lake Tahoe region illustrates why these protections matter. More than 80,000 acres of roadless lands remain on the Tahoe National Forest and the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, including areas surrounding Zephyr Cove, Rubicon Bay, and lands adjacent to the Mount Rose Wilderness.
It’s no surprise, then, that roughly 80 community members attended a recent Lake Tahoe Roadless Rule town hall, an event covered by NPR and Tahoe Daily Tribune.
Speakers highlighted the many ways Californians benefit from roadless areas in forests.
Panelist Jessica Smith with Tahoe Area Mountain Biking Association (TAMBA) said, “Mountain bikers are drawn to wild spaces for the challenge, wonder, and the quiet that only remote landscapes can provide. The roadless rule ensures that some of these landscapes remain largely undeveloped.”
Anthony Cupaiuolo with Tahoe Backcountry Alliance pointed out that areas protected under the Roadless Rule create the experiences that attract people to public lands in the first place.
Roadless areas also help protect one of California’s most important resources: clean water.
“If not properly managed, roads can be the most significant cause of erosion and transport of sediments into streams and rivers on forest service land,” said retired Forest Service hydrologist Susan Norman with the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit.
Fires are another cause for concern. Building new roads into wild areas increases the likelihood of human-caused ignitions. According to ecologist from the U.S Forest Service, nearly two thirds of human-caused fires occur along roadsides in the area within the Angeles, San Bernardino, Los Padres, and Cleveland National Forests. In recent years, the Caldor, Dixie, and Mosquito Fires each began near road corridors.
Policy analysts at Frontier Group also looked at data from 2010 to April 2026 from the Forest Service, the National Interagency Fire Center and the National Fire Protection Association and examined wildfire ignitions in roadless areas. We found that fewer than 1% of wildfires in the lower 48 states – and none of the costliest fires – since 2010 have started in roadless areas of national forests.
Santa Barbara Town Hall, Andre Sanchez
Our Rocklin town hall press release quotes Gregory H. Aplet, PhD, Senior
Forest Scientist at The Wilderness Society who says, “By their very nature, roadless areas are remote and inaccessible and experience far fewer ignitions than lands near roads. Opening roadless areas to logging and road construction will only increase the number of fires, not reduce them.”
Finally, California’s wildlife also depends on Roadless areas. Our national forests are some of the most biodiverse and visited in the country. These largely undeveloped forests provide critical habitat and migration corridors for more than 200 threatened, proposed, sensitive or endangered species of wildlife, including imperiled species like the Pacific fisher, California spotted owl, and Sierra Nevada red fox.
California’s roadless forests belong to all of us.
If you want to help protect the places that provide clean drinking water, wildlife habitat, and world-class recreation, join us at an upcoming Roadless Rule town hall.
