Why we need the Roadless Rule - Youtube Image

Episode Guest

Brian Bird, Chapter Coordinator (New England, NY, NJ, Mid-Atlantic, NC, SC, Southeast, NE)
Backcountry Hunters & Anglers

Show Notes & Links

  • Backcountry Hunters & Anglers – c
  • Regulations.gov – click this link to comment directly on the government platform.  This link takes you directly to the issue. If you enter the website from a different link, the document number is FS-2025-0001-0001

Episode Transcript

At a time when our public lands are under attack, we get curious asking questions of those who are close to the topic. Join me as we talk about the Roadless rule and why it matters. I’m your host, Missy Rents, and this is the Parks podcast.

Missy Rentz: 

In today’s quick episode, I’m talking to Brian Bird. Brian is the chapter coordinator for Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, and Brian was kind enough to join me to talk about the Roadless rule. Brian, welcome to the Parks podcast.

Brian Bird: 

Yeah. Great. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Missy Rentz: 

So this is something that is super important to me and to many of us that work and love our public lands. But just quickly, we did an episode last week, but just so people understand, what is the roadless rule?

Brian Bird: 

Okay. In a nutshell, the roadless rule is a, it’s a rule that has been established to designate areas that don’t have roads. To basically prevent roads from being built there. That’s a very brief synopsis of what the road roadless rule on federal lands federal national forest.

Missy Rentz: 

Why is it important to have the rule?

Brian Bird: 

There’s many reasons on why it’s good to have this rule. I’ll hit a few highlights here and then we can dive in more if you want. Number. I’m gonna say habitat. There is tons of research out there saying that undivided un intact, continuous connected habitat is of utmost importance for for wildlife all wildlife, not just game species. Also it a lot of these areas that have been deemed rollis is because they’re sensitive to things like erosion. So if we do go in there and create roads, it’s gonna cause problems with erosion. And then also just part of it’s to protect from commercial logging. That’s part of it as well. But essentially it’s the roadless rule is there to prevent roads in areas where we can, protect, habitat, wildlife, ecosystems, all the above.

Missy Rentz: 

And I think my understanding is that because there are no roads, it prevents any sort of development, which is the ripple effect of the protection.

Brian Bird: 

Yes. There could be, there, there could be roads on there, but there’s not, they’re not maintained roads. And it and there’s, it’s such a, it’s almost 200 million acres, so to. Paint a brush on. There’s no roads, or there are some roads I, we gotta when I say there are some roads, they’re not maintained if you’re in a road, this area, you may come across something that has been there in the past, but it’s not maintained. And it, and there’s no new road, no, no new roads.

Missy Rentz: 

And one of the things that I have read is that the reason they want to rescind this rule is so that they can help with like fire prevention and stuff, but the rule allows for that. The rule allows flexibility for protecting those public lands.

Brian Bird: 

True. Yes. And there we have you may have also heard that the idea of having roads for fire, prevention or to, put fires out is a fallacy in that like most of the fires are created by humans within, and I don’t know the number. I can look it up certain distance away from a road already. So creating roads is actually going to cause fires and not necessarily help put them out.

Missy Rentz: 

Yeah. The other thing I find interesting is that it feels like they’re, they being, our current administration is really trying to politicize, red versus blue. This, and when it comes to our public lands, it is not red and blue. We are united on that.

Brian Bird: 

Yeah I don’t know if you’re gonna put the video up, but everybody’s a, I’ve got my shirt on. Everybody’s a public landowner, like everybody in the country owns this land. It’s their land. It’s it doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from. This is all of our land.

Missy Rentz: 

Yeah. And I think, the other thing I find interesting is oftentimes we. I think that public lands is just meant for recreation and conservation. But the other thing is, like what I’m learning in parks is how much is done, to protect seashore so that houses aren’t washed away and, mudslides aren’t taking place. It’s a much bigger issue it protecting us than people think. This isn’t just for recreation.

Brian Bird: 

Yeah. Recreation is great, but

Missy Rentz: 

favorite part of it.

Brian Bird: 

totally but yeah, you’re right. There’s, I would say especially with the role of this rule, it was, it’s’cause we have areas that are, wilderness areas. And I say capital W we have designated areas that like there’s. Areas where we’re not even allowed to use gas engines like a chainsaw. You can’t use a chainsaw. And so this was an in addition to some of those areas where we’re like, Hey, you know what? This is not necessarily a designated wilderness area, but it needs to be protected, and so let’s just not have any roads in there.

Missy Rentz: 

Okay. So you are with backcountry hunters and anglers. So specifically to the mission that you serve in the organization, how. How will rescinding this impact you and all the hunters and fishermen out there?

Brian Bird: 

Part of what we do and what we’re about is a pretty multifaceted affair. And so one of it, so although hunting and angling is in our name we’re our conservation organization. So we are as passionate about the conservation as we are about hunting and angling. So if I were to ask any of our members about. Back country and wood is back country. Backcountry is first of all, something that you need to work to get to. You need to walk there, you need to pack in, you need to hike. There’s areas out west where, we might use horses or llamas to get back there but you wanna get to a spot where it appears as if it’s been untouched since the dawn of time to be out there in that environment. Chasing quarry is like one thing that we are really passionate about. So we, there’s, and again, our organization is very diversified. There are some folks who don’t go very far in and there’s some that aren’t happy until they’re six miles, eight miles, 12 miles back into the back country. Away from everything. And so one thing the Roadless rule does for us and for everybody is that there are areas of land where I’m not gonna hear a four wheeler or a side by side buzz through there or hear a motorcycle. It’s just, us. Nature. And we use that term all the time. I think it’s a little it means so much for so many people, but for me, if I’m gonna be, in a road, this area, I’m there and I’m, and I, I’m not going to be listening to traffic or even somebody, buzz by on a, dirt bike or something like that. To expand on that a little bit, you know the other thing too, with the roadless rule and part of the draw for people to be back there, hunters included, is you are now in a spot where it is, what I would say is like a natural setting where I’m not taking an easy route by walking on a road. I do that all the time, actually. If there is a log road, I’m gonna take the log road. I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna, bush whack. But it’s a whole different experience of those two. Where I live in New York I’m very close to the Adirondack Park, largest state park in the country. It’s not a national park, it’s a state park, but we have designated wilderness areas where there is. There’s, nothing. There’s no roads. You park and you hike in. There might be a hiking trail, but to get back in and off of those spots, it’s different than if you’re in a spot that, that has, even if it’s an old abandoned log road it’s a different feel.

Missy Rentz: 

Yeah, it’s very peaceful. I have to imagine.

Brian Bird: 

Yeah. For.

Missy Rentz: 

Yeah. Yeah. And then also the harm to, the fish and the, what you’re out there for your recreation. If there’s more development in those areas could over time really harm the recreation itself.

Brian Bird: 

Yeah. Yeah. If we pull the aesthetics away of being out in the middle of, nowhere, there’s a fair number of ecological issues that we can worry about whether we talk about fish, many of these areas are high up. They’re on steep slopes. They’re areas that if you were to go in and develop, and when I say develop, I’m not talking about necessarily putting houses on, I’m talking about building a road. Just the act of bulldozing a road in you’re gonna set up scenarios where you could cause more sediment or more runoff. That would change the dynamics of the stream that it’s going to. So you’re gonna put more sediment in there. We know sediment coming into a stream is going to affect everything from clarity of the water to even spawning grounds for fish. That it’s gonna change that we’ve went through this in the past. Many of these areas at one time were completely logged off. Completely deed, this, the creeks that were there were totally changed. And so that, that’s part of it. Another part of it too is, and one thing that we are, parallel with is the connected corridors. And so fish are a great example and there’s areas where, you know. built a road and they put a culvert. It’s basically a pipe. Let’s say it’s 1824 inches in diameter. They put a pipe in the road so that the water on one side of the road can flow under the road to the other side. Those in general, are really not good for that stream ecology because many times what you’ll see is the stuff below the stream can’t get through that culvert. And go above stream so that you can actually separate a stream biologically, ecologically, simply because now there’s this 18 inch galvanized steel pipe that, that interrupts that stream. So there’s stuff like that as well. We have to think about.

Missy Rentz: 

And so for this, they so they. Announced that they were rescinding the rule, and then now there’s a open public comment period until tomorrow,

Brian Bird: 

Tomorrow.

Missy Rentz: 

September 19th. And what does that public comment period do?

Brian Bird: 

A little. Quick, history here. So when this first came out in 2001, when it came out, they had another public comment period, and there was also, they also had 600 local meetings of this. They had 1.6 million public comments, 95% of which were in support of this. Roadless rule. Common theory now is to let basically those in power know your feelings on what you think about this roadless rule. BHA has, we have a take action page where folks can come in and when you put your address in, it automatically knows who your reps are. You can modify what we’re gonna send, but you hit send and it’s gonna send a message to our the, it’s gonna send a message to our legislators about, your thoughts on rescinding the roadless rule.

Missy Rentz: 

We’ll put a link to that on this episode page and also on all of our social media. We’ll link to it as well so that people can, we get, we’re driving more traffic there. But I think the key is that this is urgent and we have you. Know this is, it’s September 18th now. We have 24 hours a little bit more than that to get this done. And I think we, along with everybody else that is advocating for it, really encourage people to just take the, what’s it take, Brian, like a minute to go on your website and hit submit.

Brian Bird: 

I struggle with typing on a keyboard, so it might take me two minutes,

Missy Rentz: 

Okay. Okay. But a

Brian Bird: 

but it, yeah, it’s very quick. It’s very easily you can also call, there’s a, the phone number and it’s. It’s just one thing that I try to get across to folks from my line of work is it is so easy to connect with, call, talk with your legislators. It seems as if they’re like in this place that they don’t, it’s hard to get to. It’s really easy. This email is like the easiest thing as possible, but there’s also a phone call. You can make a phone call and you’d be surprised. You’d be surprised how often you’re generally gonna get a staffer, but that staffer’s gonna sit there and listen to you and talk

Missy Rentz: 

Yeah. Yeah. And I think, and what’s different,’cause we talk about call your legislators, but this one is also submitting a letter to the Department of Agriculture. So it’s, it, this one is a little different than what we heard all summer. But super urgent. And we need people to take the time and do it.

Brian Bird: 

Yeah. Yep. I’ll also share with you a link. We have BHA has that shows. It’s a map and it has a slider, and it shows the before and after if we rescind the rule versus what current road this looks like right now. And it’s pretty graphic as you can see, as you go across and, and let, I let folks know that. There’s this roadless rule affects the entire country. There are a whole suite of national forests in the east. I’m in New York, I’m not far from Vermont. So we’ve got the Green Mountains, we’ve got the White Mountains. I, chapter coordinator wise I cover most of the Northeast and come down to the eastern seaboard a little bit. One of my chapters is North Carolina. North Carolina has national forest. That’s, that has roadless rules. West Virginia has it. Georgia has some, Tennessee has some, this is not a just a Western issue. This is everywhere.

Missy Rentz: 

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. The big urgent message is go to the links that. Both of our organizations are sharing, submit the letter, do it today or tomorrow. And then also, I think this is key share, share this episode, share our social posts. Because that builds urgency when your friends and your family see the link. And I think now it’s also an awareness. So that people understand what’s going on. The roadless rule doesn’t say we’re stealing public land, but ultimately that’s what it will be doing is altering our access to public land.

Brian Bird: 

It will definitely change our access.

Missy Rentz: 

Yeah. Yeah. Brian, thanks for taking a few minutes to talk to me. I look forward to talking to you about your organization and future episodes, but I really appreciate the conversation.

Brian Bird: 

For sure. Thank you. Appreciate being here.

Missy Rentz: 

Thanks for listening. Until next time, we’ll see you in the parks.

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please be sure to like and share on your favorite podcast platform. Music for the parks podcast is performed and produced by Porter Hardy. For more information, please follow us on Instagram at the parks podcast. Or visit our website@theparkspodcast.com.