OPINION: 17-STATE COALITION ROADLESS FILING MISSES COMMON GROUND OPPORTUNITY

OHV Trail - IRA - Mad River Ranger District

Six Rivers National Forest

 

OPINION: 17-STATE COALITION ROADLESS FILING MISSES COMMON GROUND OPPORTUNITY

 

Don Amador

10/8/26

 I grew up in Humboldt County reading the Eureka Times-Standard. For much of my childhood, it was the newspaper I thought of as our local “newspaper of record.” So I was disappointed to read its recent coverage of California Attorney General Rob Bonta leading a coalition of 17 states in opposition to the proposed rescission of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

 TIMES - STANDARD ROADLESS ARTICLE

https://www.times-standard.com/2026/10/07/ag-rob-bonta-leads-17-state-coalition-voicing-opposition-to-roadless-rule-rescission/?mrfcid=202610086ac51b01cb2aa71ff5e08d30

 

BONTA 17-STATE COALITION FILING

https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/2025.11.10%20States%20FINAL%20full%20draft%20PLR%20recission%20comments%5B1%5D.pdf

 

 I understand—and respect—the desire to protect clean water, wildlife habitat, scenic landscapes, backcountry recreation and other public-land values. What I don’t understand is why the Roadless debate continues to be framed as though the only legitimate recreational users of these landscapes are hikers, backpackers, climbers, hunters, anglers and other nonmotorized visitors. Motorized recreation is also a legitimate and sustainable use of America’s National Forests.

 

The 2001 Rule did not literally prohibit OHV recreation in every Inventoried Roadless Area and where a route was legally designated and otherwise authorized, motorized use could generally continue.

 

But the Rule’s restrictions on road and trail construction, reconstruction and maintenance—combined with subsequent Forest Service interpretations and Travel Management decisions—created practical barriers to maintaining, reconnecting, rerouting and sometimes even considering legitimate motorized routes.

 

In some places, IRAs effectively came to be managed as Wilderness –lite units as if maintaining “roadless character” was the overriding objective, even where historic Forest Service transportation infrastructure or longstanding recreation uses existed.

 

In California where we have experienced enormous wildfire, drought, insect and disease impacts in IRAs, active management is often prohibited.  

 

For example, in its 2024 landscape-scale prescribed fire and fuels strategy, the Mendocino National Forest, recognized the need for more active forest-health and resilience treatments. Yet Wilderness, Research Natural Areas and Inventoried Roadless Areas were excluded from treatment. That disconnect deserves another look, particularly on a Forest that has experienced extraordinary wildfire impacts.

 

The Bonta coalition repeatedly emphasizes roads as threats to wildlife, water, scenery and recreation. Those concerns can be legitimate. But a road or trail is not inherently an environmental problem simply because it exists.

 

A Forest Service road can provide access for firefighters, fuels treatments, watershed restoration, forest monitoring and post-fire recovery—and it can provide access for recreation. A carefully designed trail reroute may actually reduce environmental impacts by moving a route away from a stream, unstable slope, cultural resource or sensitive habitat. A short connector can turn two dead-end routes into a sustainable loop.

 

The coalition’s own filing invokes the original Roadless Rule’s role in the context of multiple-use management. That is an important phrase. Multiple use means multiple uses. It does not mean every use occurs everywhere, and it certainly does not mean every road should be built or every historic OHV route reopened.

 

But neither should conservation automatically trump legitimate, carefully managed recreation. The coalition’s discussion of Roadless and Travel Management focuses heavily on the potential impacts of off-road vehicles and other motorized recreation on nonmotorized recreation. That is a legitimate issue to examine—but the analysis should also recognize that motorized and nonmotorized recreation can both have legitimate places in a multiple-use landscape.

 

 

Where is the recognition of OHV users who volunteer to maintain trails, contribute mapping and monitoring, support restoration and participate in collaborative planning? Where is the invitation to find common ground with diverse stakeholders?  

 

I and numerous other OHV groups that have commented on the Roadless issue have never called for unrestricted motorized access. Rather we support a framework in which IRAs with exceptional ecological, cultural, Tribal, scenic or nonmotorized values can receive heightened consideration, while roadless areas containing historic roads, existing motorized routes, altered landscapes, post-fire corridors or forest-health opportunities remain eligible for active-management evaluation.

 

After 25 years, perhaps the better question isn’t how many roads exist or how many acres remain roadless? Maybe the better question is whether we are managing these landscapes in a way that produces the best combination of ecological health, public safety, watershed protection, wildlife habitat, forest resilience and sustainable recreation?

 

Finally, the Roadless debate should not become another four-year Administrative pendulum battle. Rather, the coalition should recognize OHV and other multiple-uses as important authorized activities and encourage stakeholder collaboratives to find common ground and solutions instead of telling certain groups in advance that their legitimate use of public land is the problem.

 

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Don Amador has been in the trail advocacy, post wildfire recovery, and recreation management profession for 35 years and served as former Chairman of the CA State Parks Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Commission.