BREVARD – Local activists and leaders say that a proposal to end the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Roadless Rule could have a major impact on Western North Carolina’s public lands.
The rule, “the most important environmental regulation that most people have never heard of,” protects national forest land across the country and 152,000 acres in Pisgah and Nantahala national forests alone, Greg Parlier, a spokesperson for the environmental group Mountain True, told the Times-News April 30.
About 44 million acres of 58 million acres protected land nationwide would be “immediately” affected by the rollback of the rule, which bans all permanent roads on a subset of protected public land, Josh Kelly from Mountain True told attendees of an April 30 public engagement event held by Mountain True at Brevard’s Ecusta Brewing Co…