On the Blue Ridge
On the Blue Ridge features conversations with people shaping the Blue Ridge Mountains. Hosted by Asheville-based journalist Jon Page, the show explores the ideas, creativity, and vision driving Western North Carolina forward.
Through long-form interviews and on-location storytelling, each episode captures the evolving story of these mountains. The conversations focus on people doing meaningful and inspiring work across the region, from conservation and outdoor recreation to the arts, agriculture, food and beverage, entrepreneurship, and beyond.
On the Blue Ridge
Josh Kelly of MountainTrue on Defending the Roadless Rule
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Josh Kelly is the Resilient Forests Program Director for MountainTrue, an Asheville-based nonprofit that champions resilient forests, clean waters, and healthy communities across the Southern Blue Ridge.
MountainTrue and Josh are also strong advocates for keeping the Roadless Rule, a 25-year-old policy that protects some of our nation’s wildest public lands.
Adopted by the Clinton administration, the Roadless Rule aimed to preserve relatively undeveloped forests by restricting road construction and timber harvesting across a wide swath of the National Forest System.
This August, the Trump administration formally proposed repealing the rule, opening a public comment period that runs through Sept. 21. The administration argues that eliminating those restrictions would give local forest managers more flexibility to reduce wildfire risks and improve forest health.
But environmental and conservation groups are sounding alarms, arguing that repealing the rule could actually increase wildfire risk. They also warn that repeal could lead to more logging and road construction that threaten landscapes, wildlife habitat, and important watersheds.
Here in Western North Carolina, more than 150,000 acres of roadless land are protected in the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests. That includes forests around beloved places like Graveyard Fields, Craggy Mountain, and South Mills River, just to name a few.
MountainTrue is urging people who oppose the repeal to take action and submit public comments on the proposal before the comment period closes.
A native of Madison County and graduate of UNC Asheville, Josh has spent much of his career working on public lands and forest conservation in Western North Carolina.
In this episode, Josh explains why he opposes repealing the Roadless Rule and walks us through some of the science around wildfire. We talk about the connection between roads and wildfire, as well as the challenges of building roads in undeveloped forests. We also discuss what Josh sees as a larger debate over the role of the Forest Service.
Josh also discusses the National Park Service’s hazardous fuel debris removal project along the Blue Ridge Parkway; plans for the Craggy Mountain National Scenic Area; what a healthy Southern Appalachian forest actually looks like; and how growing up in Madison County helped shape his relationship with these mountains.
MountainTrue
Submit a public comment about the Roadless Rule
mountaintrue.org
Follow MountainTrue on Facebook and Instagram
Theme Music
The song "Goa" was written by Lyndsay Pruett and performed by the Jon Stickley Trio.
Yeah, I describe the 2001 Roadless Rule as being the most important environmental regulation that most people have never heard of. You know, most people know about the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act generally, things like that. But the Roadless Rule protects 58 million acres of national forest land for values like clean water, wildlife habitat, and recreation.
SPEAKER_01Today, on the Blue Ridge, a 25-year-old rule protecting some of our nation's wildest public lands is under attack. Here to make the case for keeping the roadless rule is Josh Kelly, the Resilient Forests Program Director for Mountain True, a nonprofit that champions resilient forests, clean waters, and healthy communities across the southern Blue Ridge. I'm your host, John Page. Let's begin. Adopted by the Clinton administration in 2001, the Roadless Rule aimed to preserve relatively undeveloped forests by restricting road construction and timber harvesting across a wide swath of the national forest system. This August, the Trump administration formally proposed repealing the rule, opening a public comment period that runs through September twenty-first. The administration argues that eliminating those restrictions would give local forest managers more flexibility to reduce wildfire risks and improve forest health. But environmental and conservation groups are sounding alarms, arguing that repealing the rule could actually increase wildfire risk. They also warn that repeal could lead to more logging and road construction that threaten landscapes, wildlife habitat and important watersheds. Among those groups is Asheville-based Mountain True. Here in western North Carolina, more than 150,000 acres of roadless land are protected in the Nanahala and Pisgah National Forests. That includes forests around beloved places like Graveyard Fields, Craggy Mountain, and South Mills River, just to name a few. Mountain True is urging people who oppose the repeal to take action and submit public comments on the proposal before the comment period closes on September twenty-first, twenty twenty-six. You can learn more about that in our show notes or at mountain true.org. And I can attest that it only takes a few minutes of your time. Josh is a native of Madison County and a graduate of UNC Asheville. At Mountain True, he monitors logging and development issues on public lands and provides site-specific scientific information to promote ecological restoration and oppose ecologically damaging management. In this episode, Josh explains why he opposes repealing the roadless rule and walks us through some of the science around wildfire. We talk about the connection between roads and wildfire as well as the challenges of building roads in undeveloped forests. We also discuss what Josh sees as a larger debate over the role of the Forest Service. Josh also discusses the National Park Service's hazardous fuel debris removal project along the Blue Ridge Parkway, plans for the Craggy Mountain National Scenic Area, what a healthy southern Appalachian Forest actually looks like, and how growing up in Madison County helped shape his relationship with these mountains. But our conversation begins with the roadless rule and why Josh believes it's worth protecting. So last year Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins wrote that getting rid of the roadless rule is about better forest management and wildfire, and that the rule has prevented thinning and made it harder for firefighters to reach fires. Do you buy that?
SPEAKER_00I do not agree with Secretary Rollins. Uh just as an example, um when you look at wildfire statistics across the country, and of course, wildfire is a much bigger deal in the West, the vast majority of wildfires are started in and do most of their damage near roads, within a half mile of the road is when almost all ignitions occur because almost all ignitions are started by people. Yeah. Lightning is important. Uh the other thing about roadless areas is they've actually been burning naturally because they're so remote for a very long time and they don't have the fuel buildups that places closer to the front country do. And additionally, um, you know, heavily logged forests are choked with lots of small diameter stems. Those are much more flammable than the large, widely spaced trees that you find typically in roadless areas.
SPEAKER_01When we get back to like what it is, like I mean, it it is essentially creating areas where they can't go in and build a road, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the the nuts and bolts of the roadless rule are that back in the late 1990s, while the root rule was being developed, the Forest Service created an inventory process where they identified all roadless areas uh larger than 5,000 acres in the western U.S. and all larger than 2,000 acres in the eastern U.S. that had this list of them. Uh and it doesn't mean that they didn't have any uh, you know, road beds exactly. You know, there are gated roads, gated forest service roads in some of these, but there had to be less, I believe, than uh a half mile per square mile of gated forest service roads in these areas. There are no open roads uh inside roadless areas. They can be kind of cherry-stemmed out, or there can be roadless areas right up to the edge of an open road, but they don't cross open roads. Um and so, and then the what the rule proposed was to conserve these areas. Uh, and and you know, the backdrop to conserving these areas was um lots of uh species uh getting locally extirpated, particularly salmon and trout uh stocks in the western U.S., species like uh marbled murlet and the uh spotted owl and the uh Cascades and uh you know, Western Washington, Western Oregon. Um and uh and then you know, tremendous water quality impacts, along with the fact that the U.S. Forest Service timber sale program was losing about $2 billion of taxpayer money annually to subsidize the building of roads into these remote areas that were still kind of the last uncut areas on national forest land.
SPEAKER_01It's like more things you have to maintain, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh absolutely. And and so also, you know, uh even today the Forest Service has 371,000 miles of road that they maintain or they're supposed to maintain, and uh a multi-billion dollar road maintenance back backlog just here on the Nanahala Pizza gets over uh $40 million of uh road maintenance backlog. Aaron Powell So the more roads we create, the more we're gonna have to spend on them. That's correct. The taxpayer is on the hook to keep those roads up you know maintained. And if you don't maintain the roads, of course, there are consequences, and the main consequence is to water, where you have a lot more m sediment, mud getting into streams. And of course, uh here in the southeast, sediment is the number one form of water pollution, the number one thing that's killing our rare, you know, not even rare, but just all of our aquatic wildlife, from um fish to mussels to salamanders.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Uh and kind of what happened in Helene with our reservoir is like kind of an example of that, right? All the sediment runoff and yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00So uh historically, you know, Asheville has uh some of the uh easiest water to treat in the country because we have so little sediment uh flowing into our um into our reservoir, and largely because that reservoir is uh coming out of a 20,000 acre essentially uh city-owned wilderness area. Uh and um Helene uh was such a powerful storm that it stirred up sediment in the lake that took forever to settle out. And because Asheville had never had to invest in the kind of sediment removal technology that most cities like Atlanta or bigger cities have to invest in because they're people are drinking muddy water. You know, they're they're taking in muddy water and purifying it. Asheville's taking in crystal clear water and not having to do a whole lot with it. Uh, we weren't prepared for the for the muddy reservoir we had after Helene, but uh that that was because we'd been saving a lot of money for decades and decades.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, and the the that that whole water issue is why like people like Sierra Nevada, one of the reasons why people like Sierra Nevada choose to come here and build a brewery. So Exactly. Um are there circumstances where um another road or or more thinning would help when it comes to wildfire?
SPEAKER_00Oh, when it comes to thinning, yeah, there is some evidence that thinning can help with wildfire. And that's another thing about roadless areas, there are thinning projects that have occurred and are occurring in roadless areas as we speak. The the roadless rule, what it says is that uh road permanent road construction, not even temp temporary road construction is actually allowed in roadless areas under certain uh conditions. And one of them is wildfire. Um and uh commercial logging are prohibited. That means that non-commercial logging, i.e. thinning, is just fine. So if you can, if you can get in there and and and cut the trees for for a forest health reason, no problem. But it's when you're going after the big trees that are actually the most fire resistant and most ecologically important. That's where the roadless rule puts the brakes on a logging operation.
SPEAKER_01Since you bring up logging, uh the administration has talked a lot publicly about wildfire and local control, which I want to get to at some point too. But um it's also kind of happening along a broader push for more timber production um and natural resource development. The the federal document about rescinding the roadless rule even highlights timber production, like brings up like uh and I I noticed that Tom Schultz, the the chief of the Forest Service uh who came in last year, has has a pretty like credentialed background, but also just kind of came from timber production most years.
SPEAKER_00Yes, he is the first ever Forest Service chief that did not rise through the Forest Service ranks and instead came out of the timber industry. So do do you think this is really about logging? I think it's about logging in as much as um there's a culture war about what should the Forest Service be. And the Forest Services had basically three distinct phases. The first we call the custodial phase between its formation and World War II, where the for the Forest Service is essentially protecting watersheds. There was some some timber harvest being done, but not a lot. Post-World War II, we had a massive economic boom. We had the baby boomers, we had families growing, we needed more houses. And the Forest Service really started increasing timber harvest, particularly in the 1960s, um, 70s, as as private timber lands were being exhausted. And by, you know, by the 1970s, the Forest Service had been largely captured by the timber industry. And so that post-World War II era's era is the extraction era that basically ended in the sometime in the 1990s. And since the 1990s, uh it's hard to know exactly what to call. I mean, uh, we were hoping, I think, in the conservation world, that it would become the ecosystem management era of the Forest Service, or maybe the ecological restoration era of the Forest Service, but it's become very much a cultural and political uh tug-of-war about what the identity of the Forest Service is going to be. And what we see, I think, is is um some nostalgia for the extraction era of the Forest Service, even if there's not the timber industry domestically to support that anymore, which there's not. Um, you know, I think um uh what a lot of people are actually mad at that that say have families that were once supported by the timber industry, uh, is global economics. Because to me, that's the real culprit. It's not roadless areas. I mean, if you look at the amount of timber that's on national forest lands, um, there's plenty of timber to be harvested outside of roadless areas. This isn't really about roadless areas. This is about making a symbolic statement that timber is king.
SPEAKER_01Uh I mean, what is your position? What is Mountain True's position on, you know, on the idea of timber? Um, like, you know, there's there's something to be said for some trees do need to be cut down, like we're sitting at a desk that's made of wood. Um so yeah, what's your thought on that?
SPEAKER_00Well, Mountain True was was founded actually uh in the early 1980s um by a pretty diverse group of people. And a couple of our very influential early founders and members were foresters. Uh, and they were foresters with the U.S. Forest Service or retired from the U.S. Forest Service, people like Walton Smith and Paul Carlson. Um, and at the time, they were all for uh, you know, sustainable harvest of of timber for Forest Service lands, but they were very upset about the unsustainable rate of clear-cutting. And this is sort of the last gasp in the regular administration of that extraction era when here in Western North Carolina, um, five to seven thousand acres a year, uh area uh uh larger than the city of Asheville, a little bit, were being clear-cut from our local national forest every year. Um, and it was very unsustainable, and they they knew it and they were horrified by it, and they banded together with all sorts of different people to put a stop to it. And um, so the result of that was uh a petition with uh 30,000 signatures on it of local residents and businesses that we wrapped it around the forest supervisor's office. We sent the petition to the chief of the forest service. Um George H. W. Bush administration was actually a lot more environmentally minded than the Reagan administration, and they took a look at it and they and they uh came to the conclusion that what was happening locally here was unsustainable, and that resulted in a new forest plan in 1994. Uh, did not put an end to, though, uh building roads into these last roadless areas. And so even during that time, places like Chioabald was having massive road building that was shrinking the roadless area that was costing taxpayers tons of money and uh damaging streams. And Tusquidybald, the still the largest roadless area in western North Carolina, had a um big money-losing helicopter logging project. Um and that's because there was no um uniform way that these areas were being treated. And that that that was the intent of the roadless rule was to create some uniformity and how these nationally important areas were were were being treated from east to west, north to south.
SPEAKER_01And and so that goes back to the local um aspect that the administration is also all about, like uh seeing that these decisions shouldn't be dictated by a national rule, um, that that local forest managers are the ones who should actually be uh that know these places, um, that should be able to make decisions. Um and I like on the surface that kind of sounds reasonable. Um but w what is that is that right, or what's wrong with that?
SPEAKER_00I think what's what's wrong with that is that's that was the status quo prior to the roadless rule. And what we saw in that status quo was uh uh you know hundreds of individual decisions in any given year uh reducing uh the size of these roadless areas. And the the trajectory is to half none, or very few of them uh, you know, in a couple of decades. So um th that's the that's the problem. And I I I you know, obviously um you do want people who know the local area making decisions uh about what goes on there. Um I I think that um that's a nice idea, but the reality of the Forest Service is that in the leadership of the Forest Service, you see people moving around a lot. You get rangers that come here that are making the decisions that don't know this area very well. And uh and they should be, and and the good, the smart ones do rely on uh you know some local expertise. They'll rely on some national expertise, they'll they'll uh rely on experts inside and outside of the Forest Service to make their decisions. Um leaving um really important decisions up to the whims of an individual district ranger who uh may have just come from uh you know Mississippi or Arizona or wherever to hear is is not necessarily uh the wisest way to proceed.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Yeah. It's and then and it's still a federal employee who's still getting directions handed down to them.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Exactly. They s they serve at the pleasure of the executive branch. They get told what to do uh and and are expected to follow orders. It's got a very militaristic, you know, you know, Forest Service is a very militaristic organization in the way it's you know it's kind of ranked. Um yeah, so um I think without um some uniformity and national standards, yeah, things things can get pretty arbitrary. Uh the uh the other thing about national forests is of course they are national forests. They're not, you know, they're this is not the Western North Carolina forest. This is a national forest, and it is a national treasure, and people from all over the country benefit from it.
SPEAKER_01Around here in Western North Carolina, what are what are some of the places that are in jeopardy because of this that a lot of people would know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So Western North Carolina has 152,000 acres of inventoried roadless area. Um, the southeast in general has 700,000 acres. So we have a pretty sizable chunk of all of the southeastern national forest roadless areas. Uh overall, the eastern U.S. has just 2% of these areas. And of course, the eastern U.S. is super populated. These are the last fragments of wild nature left in the eastern U.S. And so I I would argue that the eastern roadless areas are probably more valuable as roadless areas than than any others in the country in a lot of ways.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell That's a really interesting thought because a lot of what I'm seeing is like there's so much of this in the West, but that point right there, like that these are the last remaining bits and that's it.
SPEAKER_00That's right. They're very significant uh just because of where they are geographically and and how much population pressure there is in the eastern U.S. and how much development pressure. Um, without these places on federal lands, you just would not have roadless areas.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And then specific places like I think I've seen like the craggy, uh craggy gardens area. I saw Sam Knob mentioned somewhere. Yeah. Like places that people around here are used to going hiking and looking out and seeing.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. I mean, some of these places are are some of the most well-known and beloved places on our whole landscape. You mentioned like Sam Knob, Black Balsam, um, graveyard fields. Yeah. These are all uh roadless areas. I'm not worried about those being developed for uh for timber development necessarily, but I I would hate to see more development happen in those areas. Uh I I think they're really valuable as, you know, essentially backcountry recreation areas. And you can see them obviously in the foreground of the parkway, but I don't think we need more roads out there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um and some some other ones that people may or may not be familiar with, but they really should be. So I mentioned Tusquiddy Bald earlier. Tusquidity Bald is uh the largest roadless area in North Carolina. It's um about 13,000 acres and uh rims the the the Fires Creek watershed, um Chioobald, um, home of the uh Chioobald salamander. You know, several of these places are home to to species of plants and animals that occur nowhere else in the world. So the Chioa Bald is an example of one of those. South Mills River is one that people and uh definitely Transylvania, Henderson, and Buncombe County should know about. Not only is it consistently listed as one of Trout Unlimited's top 100 trout streams in the country, but it provides drinking water along with the Laurel Mountain Roadless area to Henderson and Buncombe County through an intake on the Mills River. Other ones that people are probably familiar with, um, the Mount Mitchell area is covered by a roadless area called Balsam Cone. Uh, the headwaters of Wilson Creek has three roadless areas, Upper Wilson Creek, Lost Cove, and Harper Creek. Um yeah, there's and uh I'll mention another one that's uh maybe a little bit less well known is the Bald Mountain Roadless Area, which um has about 11,000 acres in North Carolina, um, but over 12,000 acres on the Tennessee side of the line. So when combined, it's a 23,000 acre roadless area. And it's one of the I think it is the largest roadless area between Smoky Mountains uh National Park and Shenandoah National Park. Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I, you know, as we've been sitting here talking, I was reminded of uh the news I think last week that uh the Trump administration is like trying to open up Yosemite National Park to like some new form of development. And so, you know, you're my mind can kind of like skip from like, oh, if you do this, then that. And so it's not just a a fear of logging. It is like any kind of development that you may. It could be anything like that you'd be opening up the door to.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And it seems like um there's an organization called the Blue Ribbon Coalition that is an organized group of uh off-road vehicle enthusiasts who is very influential in the Trump administration. So there's uh two things happening in tandem right now, actually. There's the rescission of the roadless rule. And some people, I think, wrongly blame uh locked gates on the Forest Service for for the roadless rule. Most of those gated roads are not in roadless areas. Those roads are gated simply to prevent erosion, and because we don't have the money as a country to keep those up to standard to have, you know, to have all 371,000 miles of those Forest Service roads across the country to be drivable by a passenger vehicle or whatever, or even a four-wheel drive vehicle. But the Blue Ribbon Coalition wants to see all the gates unlocked so they can drive their four by fours wherever they want to go. Not only that, there's um there's this obscure piece of policy called the travel management plan that the Forest Service has that they are also updating right now in tandem with this proposed roadboost rule receiver. Decision. And on the table in that is allowing four by fours to drive off-road wherever they want on National Forest lands. So my gosh. So yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot on the table right now. And yeah, there's a lot, sure, there's a lot of money. There's some economic benefit in people having these fancy four by four rigs that can drive anywhere, but they can also do a lot of damage.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I'm thinking I was up on the Appalachian Trail by Carver's Gap this past weekend, and there's a lot of like, you know, please don't go off on this this trail here, and there's some little ropes. And the thought of like, yeah, a four by four. Not that, not that that place specifically is up for it, but the thought of something like that is pretty crazy. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's it's nuts. Um and yeah, uh again, uh I I think as much as anything we're talking about a culture war when it comes to stuff like that. People should be able to do whatever they damn well please without having to um, you know, think about the consequences. I think it's kind of the attitude and without having to think about other people or other species. Um that's one that's one side of the the uh uh uh I guess perspective, and I think a little deeper perspective would would take into account um how interdependent we are with our land and with our other people and other species.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. If this does go through, if if the roadless rule is rescinded, um do you expect that we'll start seeing these things happen quickly, or do you expect a lot of legal battles and for this to to drag on for a while?
SPEAKER_00I definitely expect legal battles. I think that's guaranteed. I and I think, you know, when people ask me, um, well, why why should I even you know take the time to make a comment on the roadless rule? The administration's already made up their mind. They probably have made up their mind, but you know, take standing up and and uh for what's right is better than staying silent, number one, even even if they don't, if they aren't persuaded by you. Number two, um all of the all of those comments that come in uh have the potential to be ammunition for the legal battles that are coming. So they you know, who knows? Your your point could end up in in some case that ends up saving the roadless rule. Um you know, the mu the concern I have with with relying on legal uh battles to save the day at the at the end though is is again this we're we're in a particularly lawless moment right now where um it seems like the administration kind of plows ahead with things even if they're in court. Um so we could see a lot of damage between um between the decision and whatever whenever the court cases are resolved, even if they're resolved in what I think would be the right outcome, which would to call me to call this uh rescission unlawful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um another thing about the rescission and just the the politics around it is it it really points to a weak spot in American politics. And that weak spot is an increasing reliance on the executive branch and executive branch rulemaking to do this. This should rightly be done by Congress and should have rightly been done by Congress a long time ago. And but that's why the Clinton administration, this was originally an executive order, and now the Trump administration can make their own executive order and try to try to uh rescind the rule. Um I mean to me that's that's a real failure of leadership uh with Congress and and it's supposed to be an equal branch of government, but it's really uh be withered on the vine and become a fairly pathetic branch of government, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_01Well, when you mentioned comments, what can someone do right now b before the the end of the comment period? Where where are you sending folks to to go and uh think through about how to doubt how to actually make a comment?
SPEAKER_00Um Yeah, so there's there is an official comment period open now until September 21st. Um there are lots of um ways to comment, but we are recommending that folks go to a fantastic website called uh roadless.org. Um there is a comment generating tool there where you can uh answer some questions with just simple clicks of the mouse about what your interests are and what you care about, where you live. And um the website will then generate a personalized, unique personalized comment for you uh that you can then proofread if you'd like and add to if you'd like. And then you copy and paste that into the regulations.gov uh website, which is there's there'll be a link there on the website to instructions. Yeah, to get there. Um that would be a pretty high-level way to do it. Um, all sorts of organizations, Sierra Club and others, have petitions that you can sign, kind of form letter type um type actions. Um but unique comments are valuable that come from your perspective that are to talk about particular issues that are important to you. And so you you may, for example, point to if you like we discussed, if you uh live in Henderson or Buncombe County, that you get some of your water from um the Laurel Mountain and Mills River roadless areas. Um you may point to uh your love of backcountry mountain biking uh and the how much you love the Jarrett Creek Roadless area and riding Heartbreak Ridge, uh, and how valuable it is to have a place where you can ride your mountain bike for miles and not cross a road. You know, there's all sorts of different reasons that people might uh be particularly affected, and all of them are important.
SPEAKER_01Is there anything else on the roadless rule that that we didn't talk about that you think is worth diving into?
SPEAKER_00Just on the topic of southeastern roadless areas being really important and southern Appalachian roadless areas being really important, the southern Appalachians sit at the headwaters of numerous river systems. Um national forests were created here because of the benefits that uh protecting these lands had for clean water and also flood prevention. Um and best estimate is that 14.5 million people in the southeast get their water directly from a roadless area. So there's like essentially all the water for 14.5 million people across the southeast uh comes from roadless areas. Uh, but when you look at the actual number of people that are affected, it's so much greater than that. You know, you're looking at cities like Atlanta, Charlotte, Cincinnati, um, Savannah, um, Knoxville, et cetera, et cetera, um, Birmingham, Montgomery, you know, so many cities across the Southeast that um have some portion of their water coming out of roadless areas. Um and, you know, I think the other thing that I'd like to really highlight is um how these really are uh coast to coast the last wild places. And we're blessed in this country with with wild land and also access to those lands. It's not it's pretty unusual uh if you go around the world to have millions of acres of land that any citizen with a you know a car can go uh get into and and wander around at their leisure. Um and um my generation of generations before me benefited from those lands. I think we are in real danger of whittling away at those lands for future generations. And I really hope that people um see the value in standing up and making their voice heard and also banding together with people across difference. Um I think there's been a lot of efforts and continue to be a lot of efforts to divide people so that a very small portion of the population can benefit from uh what my friend Hal Herring calls the smash and grab approach uh to public land. And right now they're they're they're breaking all the rules, you know, they're trying to break everything, make things dysfunctional, uh, hope that people lose interest and don't pay attention, and they'll take as much as they can. And some places, like in the boundary waters, it's a uh billion dollar copper mine. In other places it might be a several hundred thousand dollar timber sale. You know, it just it depends. But without people really standing up for these lands, there are people who do want to exploit them for their own personal benefit rather than the collective benefit that they currently hold. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you brought up the the mines, and that's another thing we didn't we talked a lot about timber, but that was another thing. So I'm glad you mentioned that. Um and I I I think it's also worth noting that there was a comment period on this last year, and like some like an overwhelming amount of like 98 or 99 percent of the comments were against rescinding the roadless rule.
SPEAKER_00That's right. So the roadless rule, interestingly, even though most people don't know about it, it is the most commented on uh federal rulemaking process in history back in 2001 when the rule was being developed, granted with a much longer, more deliberative process and with hundreds of public meetings coast to coast, there were 1.5 million comments submitted, and 95% of those comments were in favor of the Rotus rule. Uh and the scoping for the rescission last year, there were 600,000 public comments with 99%, 99.2%, I think, in uh against rescinding the rule. Um, and I I really hope that during this comment period we can get up into that 1 million or more comments uh nationwide. And I think you're we will see that those kind of percentages hold of overwhelming popularity of saving our last wild places.
SPEAKER_01There's another debate going on right now about forest management along the Blue Ridge Parkway after Halene. What's happening there?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so uh Halene was a mind-blowing storm, as we all know. Uh, and of course, one of the things that was particularly mind-blowing about it was the number of trees that it blew down. Um, you know, estimates vary. Uh, I think some of the initial estimates were quite inflated, but um regardless, uh, we know that there were around 3,000 acres of trees blown down on the parkway in large patches, and that the Blue Ridge Parkway has gotten some pressure politically to um clean up what is uh perceived as a mess, I think, and also perceived as a danger. We get a lot of messaging from the U.S. Forest Service about how dangerous down trees are. Um the reality, of course, is much more complicated. Um, our forests uh have evolved with uh, you know, tree fall since the beginning. Um and uh uh fallen trees are really important for wildlife habitat and soil formation and even in erosion control. Um one thing that I wasn't totally aware of, or not aware of at all, actually, is that when you have trees that that fall over and their root ball tips up, they leave a little depression behind. And every single one of those depressions becomes a um a water detention, little small pond. Yeah, actually, there have been some studies that have indicated um increased flood resilience following big blood run events because there's all these small little root ball ponds that can collect water to prevent run them. Just a fact about why maybe you wouldn't want to go and bulldoze those those places and flatten them all out.
SPEAKER_01That's good to know because I mean I you know go down trails a lot now and you know see those, obviously, because of Helene. And and my mind goes to like, oh, that's not the like the beautiful scenery that I want to see, but now I'm gonna look at it in a totally different light because of that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and down trees also, like I said, soil formation, um wildlife habitat, so many insects are right now chewing up those trees. There's so many salamanders under the bark of those trees eating those insects. There's birds coming along eating the insects. Um, there's uh you know, carbon going into the soil as the uh trees kind of turn into soil, a lot of things happening. Um, and of course, um again, this parkway proposal, much like the roadless rule rescind, seems ideologically motivated more than it is actually uh based on fact, in my opinion. Uh, you know, factually, I think if you were trying to reduce wildfire risk, I think the most cost-effective uh way to do it would be to start uh with structures and create a perimeter, uh a cleared perimeter around the structures. That will actually produce benefit. Um, what's proposed is more of a full-scale removal of large down trees, uh, commercially if possible, um, you know, across swaths of blown down forest. And the original proposal was for 3,000 acres. Um and, you know, they're proposing doing this with bulldozers and logging equipment, not a very national park type kind of thing to do. You know, national forest, they do have a multiple use mandate. I think we can harvest some timber off national forest if we do it wisely, and uh it can be a good thing. Um, national parks, I don't agree with taking an agency that whose whole entire mission is to preserve nature for current and future generations and turning it into a resource extraction agency. Yeah. And that's kind of um the precedent that's kind of trying to be set here. Um I I I also think that the like the wildfire discussion and fire danger discussion is really sensitive because there is some amount of danger that's really there. And then there's a whole lot of danger I think that's not actually there, that's being hyped up to scare people into accepting um what I think will be in the long term a damaging uh action uh for the for the Blue Ridge Parkway.
SPEAKER_01I I don't think I mentioned this earlier when we were talking about the roadless rule, but you know, I went back when I went back and looked at that article that Secretary Rollins wrote, um not a lot of really no sources or no citations, no nothing linked to like here was this study done that uh supports what I'm saying, and just seems to be a big lack of science and support.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I I that seems to be the case. A lot of us this runs kind of on vibes, you know, a lot of these um initiatives uh and again are they seem very ideological to me. They they don't they don't seem grounded necessarily in um true needs. And so so great example with the parkway. I think there's there's like beneficial actions to be taken around buildings and structures to uh move down debris away from those, uh to clear out areas, to make them defensible if a fire did come. But um very little benefit that I can see in the scale of project that um has been proposed. Um and so what we've been asking the park way to do, and we have a live petition right now, is to scale back that proposal to really focus on those areas where people could be at risk and to to leave the other areas um without heavy equipment activity, without ground-based heavy equipment activity, and focus on kind of hand level stewardship, um, you know, managing invasive plants, uh perhaps uh some hand chainsaw work to um get some of the debris out of the air and onto the ground where it can stay wet. Um, things like that. But you know, this idea of like removing big logs from the forest and leaving all the tops of the trees there isn't really going to reduce fire risk anyway. Um there is quite clear science that salvage logging does little to reduce wildfire risk. Okay. And that does, you know, there are good economic reasons to do it. There can be reasons for access. You know, if if there's a road that needs to get opened or something like that, maybe you do some salvage logging to open that road up. But as far as like reducing wildfire risk, uh salvage logging takes the biggest, uh least flammable pieces of wood uh and leaves the small wood. It's like when you're building a campfire, you know, you start with twigs and that's the stuff that burns easy. And you don't ever chunk a hole round log. You have to split the log up and put pieces on. And they're taking those those big uh large diameter uh pieces of wood that are very fire resistant and leaving the stuff that dries out quick.
SPEAKER_01Just making it easier for the king kindling to spark essentially. Basically, yeah. Yeah. Um are we starting to see some of this in action along the parkway? I am not aware that the activity has started yet.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Um they are expecting to start soon.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00The parkway did release sort of a cryptic update to the project in uh July, where they said they were proceeding with um about 500 acres of the logging style um work. Most of that will occur in Buncom County, um, at least um near Biltmore Forest, where it would be close to people's houses. Um and then about 500 acres, I can't remember the specific numbers, of other kinds of work, a lot of helicopter-based stuff, so it wouldn't have the ground disturbance. And a lot of that would occur um around Craven Gap and out towards Rattlesnake Lodge. Um, and then a lot of work also in McDowell County and Watauga County at Baiboon. Um what's not clear from that press release is um actually what will actually say so they they said that they're going to do um stay away from heavy equipment and that 500 acres if it's practical. Uh I think that kind of sounds like they might still do the heavy equipment if it's not practical to use helicopters and hand crews in their estimation. Um and then there are no word on the other 2,000 acres that were originally proposed. So we'd really like the parkway, uh, if possible, to to clarify what what's actually still on the table and what's not.
SPEAKER_01And that that petition that's on the Mountain True website?
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah. You can find that petition about the uh Blue Ridge Parkway fuel reduction on the Mountain True website.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And then any other any other big things that you're watching or paying attention to?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, one um big thing that Mountain True has been uh promoting for several years, along with lots of different groups and uh the local community is the creation of the Craggy Mountain National Scenic Area. And um, so that would protect all of the Forest Service land in the Craggy Mountains uh from the same kinds of things that the road list rule protects. You know, mostly commercial development, uh road construction, uh commercial logging, mining, those sorts of things. But allowing all existing roads to stay open, reconstruction of those roads after storms would be fine. Um obviously all the trails and mountain biking and all the uses, hunting and fishing and foraging and you know, whatever, picnicking, all that stuff allowed. Uh, but it would it would permanently protect an area that has uh that that the local community has been asking to permanently protect for uh almost 30 years now. And um Congressman Edwards was actually supportive of this idea. And um, you know, one one thing that I think is uh unfortunate about uh Congress Edwards, the Congressman Edwards uh withdrawing from the race is it's not clear if his predecessor or or successor rather does still support that. And I would I would hate for that to become a partisan issue because absolutely not. This is something that all sorts of uh of local folks want. Everybody from you know multi-generational farmers to folks who uh you know have only visited the area in support of protecting the Craigis, a super sp special mountain range um with you know peaks over 6,000 feet tall and some of the last uh old grass forest in the east, um, and uh just incredible um natural diversity, wildlife habitat, and recreational opportunities that really deserve protection.
SPEAKER_01What does a healthy southern Appalachian forest look like?
SPEAKER_00Great question. Um Southern Appalachians, of course, are famously diverse, right? And so uh you've got this whole gradient of uh forest types uh from the bottom of the mountain to the top of the mountain that covers about 700 miles of latitude. So you have everything from these dry pine forests uh down at the base of the escarpment around Old Fort and even running up uh on south and west facing slopes almost to 4,000 feet that have evolved with frequent fire and are very drought resistant. And then you've got these forests along the streams that have, you know, hemlock and uh buckeye and basswood and all these speech tree species that need a lot of moisture, got high elevation um spruce fir forests that are similar to the boreal forests in Canada, uh, northern hardwoods forests that are similar to the forest in New England. Um, and so this massive uh range of ecological diversity. And so there's no no one way that any forest is gonna look. But but the landscape itself is healthy when all of um all of the processes are operating on that landscape. So that would include things like fire and windstorms. It would include floods. It also includes um, you know, uh in our area, uh frequent summer rainfall. It's what makes this area so uh fertile and easy to live in, is that we get summer rains, whereas in the western U.S. they they pretty much have a dry summer. And we that's why we don't have the huge fires they have.
SPEAKER_01I try to remember that every time I'm like lamenting the fact that I I want to plan to go on some kind of a hike, but there's you know a 60% chance of thunderstorms.
SPEAKER_00Totally. Yeah. It was it's wet around here and humid, and you've got to, you know, you almost have to just embrace it to get out in the summer sometimes. Um so yeah, all the processes operating and um and you know, like the some some of the big threats to our forest right now are um non-native species, uh mostly uh pathogens and um and pests of being the big ones, and also plants, but like you know, hemlock, woolly adelgid, emerald ash borer beetle, species like this that wipe out whole tree species, um, and um chestnut blight, uh those types of things are are devastating to our forest and have been. There's not really coming back from those. Luckily, we have such a diversity of tree species here. There are other species that can fill in. Um, and then um non-native invasive plants, uh, particularly the woody plants, uh, the vines, uh, talking um bittersweet and uh porcelain berry and kudzu and tree of heaven and polonia and stuff like that. Um the the places that are in the best shape don't really have those. So if you get into the backcountry of these roadless areas, you don't usually see those non-native invasive plants. And the the places where you do tend to see those is where there's been a lot of human activity, a lot of human disturbance, a lot of edges on. In the forest. And um, and then finally, you know, one thing that that we're missing um is the full complement of species that these forests evolve with. And so, you know, thankfully, um, in my opinion, um I'm thankful anyway that the uh Wildlife Commission has reintroduced elk to a portion of Western North Carolina, but we're missing large grazers and like rare ecosystems like grassy balds really need large grazers. And but we're also missing predators. And I think we're really seeing the problem with that now as the deer population in Western North Carolina explodes, and as ticks and tick-borne diseases also explode alongside them. Uh, you know, and I I don't we may be probably too heavily populated to ever have wolves or a big cougar population around here, but it's something we're gonna have to to deal with with um with ticks and tick-borne diseases, and also the the changes that that deer overbrowsing causes to forests, where they can really reduce the herb layer and all the species that rely on the urban, urban and also the shrub layer in the forest. Um and then finally, you know, uh fire is really important in the south. And um because we have such a developed and fragmented landscape, fires aren't allowed to burn like they historically did. And that's so that leaves uh a lot of forest in degraded condition. They're getting overcrowded, even if it's not a wildfire risk, it and sometimes it is. Around here, not as much as in the west. But the the big thing around here is just um the crowding of the forest with small trees um really shades out a lot of the herbaceous plants that are native and and uh uh basically destroys the habitat for a lot of species that need a more open forest. Um, so uh I would encourage folks to um I mean, one of the things I think that our culture needs is to become more uh comfortable with uh with natural processes like fire and and to to build our uh societies around living alongside these things rather than around totally controlling them and totally putting them out all the time.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Just the idea that you can totally ignore them and what not not ignore them, but the idea that you can totally like force them out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I mean, and and even if you can, there's big consequences to that, because you're breaking, you know, millions of years of evolutionary history when you're when you're breaking that chain. And the the reality is, as I think you kind of allude to is at some point nature catches up to you. You we will have like 2016 where we had that massive drought, we had 61 days without measurable rainfall, you know, uh 70,000 acres around the southern blue ridge burned and people died in Gatlinburg. And, you know, uh the at some point the weather will catch up. And we're as as the as global warming proceeds and it gets hotter, that's that's happening more and more.
SPEAKER_01You grew up in Madison County, right? That's right. Yeah. Uh what what what did the woods mean to you as a kid?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh I mean I think growing up in rural Madison County is uh 100% the reason um I'm in the conservation field today. I think um I didn't have a lot of um other kids nearby to play with, but I did have uh a couple of nice creeks to splash around in and a lot of woods to to go run around in. Uh and and so uh nature was sort of my friend, one of my best friends growing up. Um and also was lucky, you know, Madison County is a uh one of the, in my opinion, one of the best parts of the Blue Ridge. And it's it's because of the people and because of the culture. They're very um there are a lot of really down-to-earth people in Madison County. And when I was growing up, a lot of those people still got most of their food out of their garden and you know, their farm. Um some of the people I was lucky to know were uh, you know, 60, 70, 80 years old when I was a little kid and had grown up in times when uh I mean they remembered a lot of their life, they didn't have electricity. They were uh still getting around with horses and um just completely different lifestyle and um very kind of down-to-earth accepting um look, look at the world and a lot of kind of live and let live um attitudes about uh about people. And that's one of the reasons I think my parents were accepted into the community. Although some communities don't accept newcomers uh in Madison County back in the 70s, but they did accept my parents. Um, I think that combination of being really uh close with nature and also being being very pragmatic. Like my my parents were kind of back to the land types and um built their house off of uh trees they cut off their land. And dad actually got talked into buying a sawmill by this old timer uh JB Ramsey and um and mill milled trees right there to on the land to to build the the little shack. It's amazing. But enough, yeah. Um and and so that that kind of informs, I think, uh that community and my upbringing informs my both reverence for nature, but also my my sense that people can have an exchange and a give and take with nature. And I I've learned a lot about that also from um just listening to Cherokee people talk. Yeah, I I think um I think Cherokee people and oftentimes a lot of indigenous people have a lot of wisdom about how people can have a real positive relationship with nature. And uh, Western environmentalism is oftentimes very black and white. It's like either you're keeping your hands off of it or you're destroying it. And there's there is a lot of middle ground there. Um there are uh are ways that w people can pick can tend nature uh uh in a certain way. And I don't mean control, but have it have a I don't I I think control is a dangerous pursuit and an illusion in a lot of ways. Yeah. Um, but I do think that interaction and the exchange, uh, the mutual benefit is there for us to to find uh w with these mountains and forests and streams that we we all love and benefit from.
SPEAKER_01W when did you know that you wanted to dedicate your your life to this work?
SPEAKER_00Um I think I I I think I figured that out when I was a teenager. I think I I um yeah, I decided I definitely decided I wanted to work in conservation as a teenager. Probably part of that was my dad ended up in a corporate job. And I saw saw how he had to work and what his lifestyle was like, and and I didn't want that. Um and then the other part of it was I I really cared. And I, you know, I I was learning about the the uh environmental crises around the planet and wanted to to do something to um help turn the tide. Um and I think I think I I I realize now that um it really takes that one of the things I love about working at Mountain True is um our whole philosophy on advocacy is you know, organizing people, mobilizing people, um, really providing a platform for the the citizens of this region to make their voices heard. Because, you know, I can make the most logical, best argument in the world, and it may not, you know, be persuasive enough. Uh a lot of these decisions are at the end of the day made emotionally. And uh, of course, people who live here love this place and are able to speak so deeply and powerfully about it. And um and, you know, in in in our form of politics, which I think is better than a lot of politics, uh, public opinion matters. And so really organizing people to make their voices heard can make a big difference and also create like I I I think we need as much as anything, cultural shift. I think um I I I think we need to put health and uh you know health above other forms of wealth. Health is a form of wealth. I think too long uh we've uh we've placed materialism at the top pretty much. And um I I I think we're at a point now where um gosh, if we if we don't pr prioritize health and uh cooperation and and uh the long term over short-term profits, we're in we're in deep trouble.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I I mean I know I feel my best around here when I'm up on Black Balsam Knob or hiking over to Mount Tenant there or Sam Knob or or Craggy. Like when I'm in these places, um and and it's a recurring thing with my family, with my wife telling us all that we're so lucky to live here. Um how are you able to enjoy hikes and time up in nature knowing that all of this is going on and like looking out and seeing invasive species and and knowing like what's going on with the roadless rule? How do you kind of compartmentalize and and stay calm and present?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I I'm like you. I feel my very best when I am outside breathing the clean air, smelling uh uh all the smells of the forest, um swimming in a creek. Um ideally like on a long backpacking trip where I can take some time and catch a fresh meal of trout. Um and um you know, I I do think it it helps to be able to stay present and to not spiral off into the the what ifs, what what could happen? Um you know, it m it's it's my day job to worry about um all the problems. And I really when I'm um out of my own, I try not to focus on that as much and I try to to connect with the the deep presence of these places. And you know, I'm a bit uh, you know, spiritually a bit of an animist. I think I do think that there is divine in every single rock, tree, stream, mountain out there, and I think they all have a presence and I think they can speak to us. And so I'm I'm out there trying to listen, and that that keeps me sane.
SPEAKER_01And and in terms of what's keeping you just optimistic about the the future of this region, the future of our forest, uh especially as we're uh you know talking about the roadless role right now, um what's keeping you optimistic?
SPEAKER_00What keeps me optimistic is that um I see when I look around the massive popularity of uh I mean, what can be more popular than nature, right? I mean, but people people at our core, we we do most of us want this similar things. And I think if we can get through this divisive time we're in, um, I think we have a chance to do really, really good stuff. Um we are the most uh in a lot of ways fortunate and blessed nation on earth. We're certainly the wealthiest, uh and we certainly have some of the most beautiful lands, and we've got great people in this country. And I think um I think if we can find that common purpose and connect, and a lot of that common purpose for me is is the love of this land that is our home. Uh, you know, I I I see a great, great potential for a pendulum swing. I think see a great potential to um refocus on shared values and and to bring back um as you know, a sense of uh of honor and a sense of um you know, a sense of doing right in the world as being uh as being virtuous, a sense of virtue.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Is there anything else we didn't talk about that you would want folks to know? Hmm.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I would really like people to know that Mountain True is a uh member-powered organization, and we do have a large uh uh professional staff, um, and we're here to serve people of this region. And, you know, we we span uh uh the whole range of the mountains from North Georgia to the Virginia border. And what would love you know, we're here to serve um people, whether that's protecting their communities or their their favorite piece of public land, their favorite uh stream, or just uh helping you all connect to to this place. We do a lot of outings and um you know we're we are blessed to have uh so much public land in this area. And if you're ever looking for um you know information on our public lands, we're we're here to help.
SPEAKER_01That's all for today. Huge thanks again to Josh Kelly for speaking with me. And a final reminder that if you're listening to this before September 21st, you still have time to submit a public comment on the proposed repeal of the Roadless Rule. You can visit mountaintrue.org and click on Action Alerts in the Get Involved section, or you can find a link in our show notes. It only took me about five minutes to draft and submit mine. And there's no bad time to visit Mountain True's website where you can find other ways to get involved. You can sign up for email alerts and follow the organization on Facebook and Instagram, or they're at MTN True. You can also find OnTheBlue Ridge on Facebook and Instagram at OnTheBlue Ridge, and online at on the blueridgepod.com. And if you're enjoying this podcast, please follow or subscribe wherever you listen. Consider leaving a rating and a quick review, or simply share it with a friend, as it really helps more people find the show. Our theme music is the song Goa, written by Lindsay Pruitt and performed by the John Stickley Trio. Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you next time on the Blue Ridge.