Maine Insights Newsmagazine

Public has 30 days to persuade Forest Service to halt misguided plan

August 19,2026

Portland — Some of Mainers’ favorite places to immerse themselves in nature face imminent danger. The U.S. Forest Service (part of the Agriculture Department) filed a proposed rule in the Federal Register on Wednesday that would end protections for nearly 45 million acres of “inventoried roadless areas” from road-building and logging. 

“As Americans are planning how to spend their time outside in our public lands this fall, the Forest Service is proposing to open our wild forests to logging and new roads,” said Environment America Research & Policy Center’s Great Outdoors Campaign Director Ellen Montgomery. “We should be celebrating nature and protecting our remaining intact forests, not removing decades-old protections. We call on all Americans to submit public comments over the next 30 days. To keep America beautiful, let’s ask the Forest Service to keep our wild forests wild.” 

The Roadless Area Conservation Rule currently protects these swaths of wild forests, including 6,000 acres in Maine, from logging, mining and other destructive human activities.

According to the proposed rule, the Forest Service anticipates that permanent roads could be constructed across 18.2 million acres and temporary roads across another 11.3 million acres of wild forest currently protected from development. Roads and road reconstruction damage wildlife habitat, hinder wildlife movement and can cause water pollution. And, contrary to the stated rationale for rescinding the Roadless Rule, it may increase the likelihood of human-caused wildfires. Fewer than 1% of wildfires in the lower 48 states since 2010 have started in roadless areas of national forests.

For a quarter-century, forests protected by the Roadless Rule have provided respite from modern hustle and bustle to people visiting Maine and the people and wildlife who live here.

“Maine’s White Mountains National Forest is now vulnerable to losing protections currently provided by the Roadless Rule,” said Adam Nordell, Conservation Advocate for Environment Maine. “The inventoried roadless areas in the Whites contain a wildly diverse mountain landscape that provides a breeding habitat for Maine’s rarest nesting bird, the golden eagle. Its cold mountain streams are home to the spring salamander, a rare species whose populations have shrunk or disappeared elsewhere in the state due to deforestation and stream degradation. Allowing construction and logging in our designated roadless lands would be a terribly short-sighted decision with far reaching impacts to wildlife and all those who enjoy it. 

The Roadless Rule was enacted in 2001 after 600 public meetings and in response to 1.6 million public comments. The public will have until September 21 to comment about the new proposed rule once the government publishes the proposal on Thursday.

People can go to saveroadlessforests.com to leave a comment and let the Forest Service know they want to keep the Roadless Rule — and the beloved forests across Maine– intact for generations to come.