“Roadless Rule” & Keeping Forests Intact

When we think about protecting forests, it is easy to focus on trees. But for birds, what often matters more is whether a forest is still intact. Large, unfragmented forests are quieter and less disturbed. They hold water differently and provide the space birds need to nest and raise young. Once roads and development cut into those landscapes, the ecological changes are difficult, and often impossible, to reverse.

For nearly 25 years, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, also known as the “Roadless Rule”, has helped protect millions of acres of public forest from new road construction and large-scale development. Those protections are now under renewed discussion, which makes it worth pausing to consider why they exist.

A road is never just a road. It brings repeated human presence, noise, and light. It changes drainage patterns and often leads to more activity over time. For birds, especially during breeding season, this kind of disturbance can be enough to make an otherwise suitable area unusable.

Roadless forests support healthier bird populations, protect clean water, and maintain ecological stability. These benefits extend far beyond their boundaries. They are the same conditions that allow rare places — like an upland Great Blue Heron rookery — to persist year after year.

The Save the Rookery effort began when development disrupted a long-standing nesting site. While the rookery itself is not part of a federally designated roadless area, the pressures it faces are part of a broader pattern. Incremental fragmentation, loss of surrounding forest, and increased disturbance slowly narrow the space wildlife needs to thrive.

Protecting intact forests elsewhere helps maintain the larger ecological systems that support birds locally. It also reflects a broader commitment to restraint — choosing, in some places, not to build, not to expand, and not to intervene unnecessarily.

Once a forest is fragmented, there is no easy way to put it back together. Paying attention to policies like the Roadless Rule, and caring for places like the rookery, is about recognizing that some losses are permanent — and that acting early is often the only real form of protection.

To learn more about the Roadless Rule and the current threats to it, see the Audubon Society’s article here.

Photo by Michael Melford