(Letter to the Editor - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

In 2001, I attended a public hearing at Seneca Rocks, W.Va., for the new Roadless Rule for National Forests. It has been in effect since then, keeping roads and logging out of sensitive areas and valuable recreational places.

Don’t lose access to the beautiful forests where you love to hike, view wildlife and spring flowers, camp, hunt, and fish. In West Virginia’s Monongahela National Forest, the roadless areas include Seneca Creek, Roaring Plains, Canaan Loop, Tea Creek, and North Mountain.

The current administration plans to rescind the Roadless Rule to make it easier to build roads and cut trees on our public lands that belong to all of us, not just timber companies.

One excuse for this is to stop wildfires, but fires are more likely to start near roads. An intact ecosystem is more resilient to fires and climate change. In the contiguous United States, the farthest any forest is from a road currently is 20 miles.

This means we already have plenty of roads in our forests. Please speak up to your representatives and senators and tell them to preserve inventoried roadless areas and pass H.R.3930 – Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2025.

Karen Yarnell

Marietta