By Lizzy Scully, CEO Four Corners Guides. Photos by Steve Fassbinder, co-owner, head guide.
We Need The Silence, The Solace & Adventure
I love the National Forest roads as much as the next person. Steve and I drove up NFS dirt roads on Sunday to access and mountain bike down our stellar West Mancos Trail. These roads offer endless miles of scenic bikepacking, access to great river put-ins and take-outs, and they provide hunters, anglers, motos, hikers and packrafters with endless opportunities to recreate. But, do we need roads everywhere? No! Why? Because while we regularly utilize the existing roads to access stunning backcountry areas, we also need places where we don’t have to hear motors, where fewer people go because they are harder to get to, where nature remains intact and where there is silence.
The wild animals need silence.
The birds need silence.
We need silence.
What Is The Roadless Rule?
The Roadless Rule protects 58.5 million acres of OUR National Forests from road construction and logging. Since 2001 the public has overwhelmingly supported it, including conservatives, liberals and everything in between. In fact, a 2019 Pew Charitable Trust poll found 75% Americans are in favor of this rule! In creating the Roadless Rule, the government held 600 public hearings and took into account 1.6 million public comments.
So What Does it Do & How Would The Rollback Affect You?
It protects wildlife habitat, preserves clean drinking water sources, preserves backcountry recreation opportunities, and ensures small businesses like Four Corners Guides can continue to run courses that give people the opportunity to unplug and immerse themselves in true adventures.
Rolling back the Roadless Rule would allow for the potential construction of roads, timber harvests, and other development on Colorado’s inventoried roadless areas. The results could negatively impact ecosystems and OUR opportunities to recreate. Specifically its rollback could:
Threaten the clean water sources we rely on and the rivers we paddle on;
Fragment the wildlife habitats we bike or hike through or hunt and fish on;
Diminish opportunities for the vast majority of Americans to recreate without breaking the bank.
So the one-quarter of folks in the USA against the roadless rule argue its rollback could enable greater economic activity through timber, oil and gas development. OK, fine. I know we need wood for building, oil for powering our cars, meat to eat. But 85% of our public lands are already grazed, 35% logged, and 12% set aside for oil & gas extraction. What about my ability to run my business? What about all the local companies who rely in part on the food and equipment we regularly buy to run our trips?
Our businesses MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN OUR COMMUNITIES!
Did you know… “The seventh annual report from the federal government shows the outdoor recreation economy is bigger than agriculture, extractive industries and utilities, accounting for 2.3% of the nation’s total economic activity.” (Colorado Sun)
In Colorado this translates to 132,594 jobs, each averaging $65,000 a year. This translates to me, Steve, our head guide Thad Ferrell who runs Kingfisher Flyguides, our friends at 4Corners Riversports and Pineneedle Mountaineering, and the list goes on, having decent, good-paying jobs that allow them, in turn, to give back to their communities.
Do you see now how rolling back the Roadless Rule will adversely affect Colorado, my business and my community? This is why I am asking you to speak out against rescinding it. You have until September 19th to tell the Federal government how you feel. Please take action now. It’s going to be a grind protecting our public lands from the all-out, repeated assaults that are and will continue to happen these next few years. But we can do it. We can save OUR public lands.
