LOCAL COLUMN
OPINION: Rescinding the Roadless Rule would put NM public lands at risk
As a Din茅 and Apache wildlife biologist who grew up in the light of Mount Taylor, I carry a responsibility to speak for the lands that raised me. My work is based on the understanding that our forest, waters and wildlife are not just resources, but also relatives. That is why I oppose the federal proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule. Rescinding the rule will remove prohibitions on road construction, reconstruction and timber harvest on nearly 59 million acres of national forest. Rescinding this rule opens these forests and ecosystems to excessive extraction of resources for profit.
Raised at the base of Mount Taylor, or Tsoodzil, the southernmost of the Navajo sacred mountains, I grew up exploring its slopes; playing in the perennial waters of Bluewater Creek; peering through the La Ventana arch; hiking the lava flows and cinder cones of El Malpais. Tzoodzil is represented by the color turquoise, representing water. To the Din茅, these mountains provide medicines, sustenance and refuge.
As both a biologist and a Din茅 man, I鈥檝e seen what unchecked extraction does to our homelands. Uranium mining from the 1950s through the 1980s desecrated Mount Taylor, contaminated the environment, and poisoned Indigenous and mining communities. Unrestored open mines still exist across the landscape. We must not forget the Church Rock Uranium Mill Spill of 1979 occurred, pouring 94 million gallons of radioactive waste into the Rio Puerco. Few benefitted, many suffered. And still extraction persists. These lands are the homelands of many tribes including the Din茅, Ndee, Hopi, Zuni and pueblos. These lands provide subsistence beyond timber and mineral interests; hunting, foraging, fishing, water, recreation, shelter.
Some believe rescinding the rule is about preventing wildfire. Research from The Wilderness Society found wildfires were four times as likely to ignite in roaded areas than in roadless forest, and other studies show more than 90% of fires start within half a mile of a road. The Roadless Rule already allows thinning, prescribed burning, hazardous fuels treatment and emergency road construction when fires or floods demand it. This rollback isn't about fire, but rather opening public land to commercial logging and industrial extraction.
When I hear the federal government is proposing to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule 鈥� a policy that鈥檚 protected nearly 45 million acres of wild national forest, including roughly 1.6 million acres here in New Mexico 鈥� I鈥檓 deeply concerned.
The U.S. Forest Service already manages 380,000 miles of roads, eight times the Interstate Highway System, and can't afford to maintain what it already has. Taxpayers would be paying the bill for new roads that fragment elk and mule deer corridors, silt up the headwaters that supply drinking water to 60 million Americans, and sever the hunting, gathering and ceremony that communities depend on.
The bipartisan Roadless Rule has worked for 25 years because people who care about protecting our wilderness demanded it. Now, we need to stand up again, to tell the Forest Service and our congressional representatives to keep these protections in place, and to codify them so they can't be stripped away at the whim of any administration. A public comment period on the Roadless Rule opened up on Aug. 20 and we have 30 days to make our voices heard. Visit to submit your public comment and share why you care about protecting roadless areas.
Everything we have left in these forests is what previous generations fought to keep whole. It will be much harder to remove roads already built than to demand they aren鈥檛 built in the first place. Balance is still possible, and worth striving for.
Nekai Eversole is a wildlife biologist and program lead with the Navajo Nation Department of Fish and Wildlife's Climate Change Program. Eversole is Apache and Navajo and grew up near Grants and Gallup.
