Asheville roundtable spotlights proposed rollback of Roadless Rule, local forests at risk

Asheville’s roadless lands could face new roadbuilding, logging and habitat damage if Washington rescinds the Roadless Rule, and local advocates used a roundtable on Sweeten Creek Road to show exactly which forests would be affected.

MountainTrue and other conservation groups gathered residents at The Mule at Devil’s Foot Beverage Company, 131 Sweeten Creek Road, for a Roadless Rule roundtable that organizers said was part of a broader Western North Carolina campaign. Josh Kelly helped lead the event, which was one stop in a coalition effort involving 17 organizations and parallel public hearings in Hayesville and Brevard.

The stakes are unusually concrete in Buncombe County and nearby mountains. The South Mills River, the Black Mountains and Tusquitee Bald are among the places named in the local debate, along with more than 123,000 acres in the Pisgah and Nantahala national forests that are not protected by wilderness designation. MountainTrue’s coalition materials say the campaign is centered on the future of about 150,000 acres of local wild forests.

At the federal level, the U.S. Department of Agriculture published a notice of proposed rescission of the 2001 Roadless Rule on Aug. 29, 2025, and set a comment deadline of Sept. 19, 2025. Federal Register materials say the rollback would affect about 44.7 million acres of National Forest System inventoried roadless areas. The Congressional Research Service says those inventoried roadless areas total about 58.2 million acres, roughly 30% of the National Forest System’s 193 million acres.

The 2001 rule, which took effect March 13, 2001, restricts road construction, road reconstruction and timber harvesting in roadless areas. The U.S. Forest Service says the rule today applies to nearly 45 million acres of National Forest System lands, including Alaska. In Asheville, opponents warned that undoing those limits would invite more roads into steep, hard-to-reach terrain, increase erosion and runoff, and threaten fish and wildlife habitat.

Kelly said rescinding the rule would also waste taxpayer money by pushing development into rugged forest areas that are expensive to build out. Supporters of the rollback have said it would help with fire prevention and responsible timber production. That tension gives the local fight a direct Buncombe County edge: it is about trails, streams, watershed protection and the public lands economy that helps sustain tourism across Western North Carolina.