Roadless Lands

Montana Roads, Roadless Areas and Wilderness Areas [click image to enlarge]

Montana is blessed with a bounty of public lands that are still pristine – places where all Americans can go to experience solitude, that provide the cornerstone for our hunting and fishing heritage, and where nature is still free to run its course.

Millions of acres of public lands in Montana are “roadless,” a poor description for the last of the best of our public lands heritage. Many of these special places are of such high quality that they should be designated Wilderness by Congress and made part of the National Wilderness Preservation System.

Montana is one of two states for which Congress has not passed statewide Wilderness legislation. As a result:

  • There is a lot of roadless public land in Montana, as compared to other states; and,
  • Many of these places, like the East Pioneers, Italian Peaks, Pryors, Big Snowies, Rocky Mountain Front, Whitefish Divide, Scotchman Peaks, and Great Burn should be Wilderness today, but are not.

The Montana Wilderness Association works hard to protect our key roadless lands, as part of our gift to future generations. We work to preserve these special places through administrative processes (like Forest and Travel Planning), through policies that could further protection (such as the “Roadless Rule” discussed further below), and through seeking Wilderness designation for the most pristine of these areas.

The “Roadless Rule” first started as a policy initiative in 1998, when the Forest Service declared an 18-month moratorium on road building in national forests to inventory roads and lands and study the situation. After extensive review, process, and public comment, a formal rule was adopted in 2001.

What is a Roadless Area?

The Wilderness Act directed federal natural resource agencies to survey all unroaded lands for possible wilderness designation by Congress. Most were surveyed by 1972. Those surveyed are called “Inventoried Roadless Areas.” However, there are many wild places in Montana that should have been included in the inventory, but were not. These are “Uninventoried Roadless Areas.” Many of these places are just as spectacular and deserving of protection.

Montana is one of two states (Idaho is the other) for which Congress has not passed statewide wilderness legislation to protect public roadless areas. As a result, 8 million acres of roadless federal lands in Montana are vulnerable to fragmentation and degradation from resource extraction, road construction, and motorized recreation.

By the Numbers:
Total Inventoried Roadless Area acres (Forest Service): 6,397,000 Percent of land base: 6.8%

As adopted, the rule protected roadless lands from new road construction, and commercial timber harvest. There are numerous exceptions to each prohibition. Unfortunately, the Rule does not protect roadless lands from motorized use.

The Montana Wilderness Association and its members were instrumental in organizing public support for the Rule in Montana. Thousands of Montanans packed public hearings across the state, and 78% of the 16,000 comments from Montana supported the Rule (or requested a stronger rule). MWA also played a critical role in facilitating a strong defense of the Rule in the federal courts.

Since then, the Montana Wilderness Association has not only defended the Rule against attempts to weaken it, but has also been opportunistic in:

  • Demonstrating continuing public support for roadless lands protections (such as organizing around county meetings held by the Governor as part of a possible state petition process);
  • Working within the Bush Administration’s roadless process to support strong protections for roadless lands (the Montana Wilderness Association’s former Vice President, Dale Harris of Missoula, is a Co-Chair of the Roadless Area Conservation National Advisory Committee); and,
  • Pointing out the weaknesses of the Roadless Rule (which does not protect roadless lands from motorized use).

The Montana Wilderness Association will continue to support the protection of roadless lands, mobilize community-based support for the protection of local areas, and work for Wilderness designation for the most pristine of those special places.