As a disabled athlete and disability advocate, I’ve spent years fighting for genuine access to the outdoors, trail surfaces we can navigate, programs that welcome adaptive equipment, and communities that plan with disabled people instead of around us. So when the Trump administration frames its push to repeal the 2001 Roadless Rule as an “access” measure, I recognize the argument for what it is: a justification for the timber and mining industries dressed up in language meant to sound compassionate toward people like me.
The Roadless Rule has protected roughly 45 million acres of national forest from road-building, logging, and mining for 25 years. On August 18, the U.S. Forest Service formally filed a proposal to rescind it, opening a public comment period that runs through September 21.
Officials say new roads will improve wildfire management and “restore access” to the land. But access to what, and for whom? The industries that have already logged the easiest, most accessible timber are now eyeing the roadless 30 percent of the National Forest System that remains. That isn’t access for disabled hikers, hunters, or paddlers. It’s access for logging trucks and drilling equipment. Actual accessibility for disabled outdoor recreationists comes from investment in trail design, adaptive infrastructure, and maintained low-impact access points, not from carving industrial roads through backcountry that most of us will never be steered toward using in the first place.
The wildfire justification is also weaker than it sounds. The Forest Service’s own analysis found that wildfire density is lowest in wilderness and roadless areas and highest near roads, since most fires are human-caused and start close to where people and vehicles already are. More roads mean more ignition points, not fewer. The U.S. is already living through one of its worst wildfire years on record, with over 7 million acres burned so far in 2026. Rolling back roadless protections now, in the middle of a worsening fire crisis, is not a safety measure; it’s a gift to industry timed to a moment of public fear.
This matters enormously for disabled people, because we are the population least equipped to absorb the downstream effects of accelerating climate change. Wildfire smoke disproportionately harms people with respiratory conditions, cardiovascular disease, and compromised immune systems. Extreme heat is more dangerous for people who rely on medication that affects temperature regulation, who use power-dependent mobility or medical equipment, or who cannot evacuate quickly during emergencies. Disasters made more frequent and severe by deforestation and habitat loss consistently kill and injure disabled people at higher rates than the general population, because evacuation systems, shelters, and emergency plans are so rarely built with us in mind. Every acre of intact forest that continues to absorb carbon and filter water is protective infrastructure for disabled bodies. Every acre opened to logging and road-building is a small, compounding step toward a climate that makes disability more common and disabled life more precarious.
During the last public comment period, more than 625,000 Americans weighed in, and over 95 percent opposed the rescission. This is not a fringe position; it is a broadly shared value under attack by a narrow set of industry interests.
I am asking readers, disabled and non-disabled alike, to submit comments opposing this rescission before the September 21 deadline. Protecting roadless forests is not opposed to access. It is the foundation of a livable, survivable future, which is the only kind of access that actually matters.
Vasu Sojitra lives in Bozeman.