Roadless Areas

Greater Yellowstone is blessed with millions of acres of un-roaded wildlands that provide essential wildlife habitat, ensure our rivers run clean, support world-famous fisheries, and allow us to renew ourselves physically and spiritually. Extensive scientific studies tell us that these special wild places are the reason the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is still home to all the species that roamed the region when Yellowstone National Park was created in 1872.

Some of these backcountry lands are formally protected from new road building as designated Wilderness areas or within our National Parks. Others are available for extractive activity and road construction. The National Forest Service calls these unroaded but unprotected lands “roadless areas” based on their inventories of roadless lands. There are currently more than 4 million acres of unprotected National Forest roadless lands in Greater Yellowstone.

Roadless areas play a vital role in the ecological health of Greater Yellowstone. They provide the most secure habitat for elk, bighorn sheep, moose and mountain goats. The long-term survival of wide-ranging predators such as grizzly bear, mountain lion, and wolverine depends the relatively undisturbed habitat roadless areas provide.

The roadless backcountry of Greater Yellowstone forms the headwaters of the region’s cleanest streams, large and small. These streams support a world-renown native and sport fishery as well as provide pure water for drinking and irrigation.

As a result, roadless areas are magnets for hunting, fishing and recreation. These backcountry lands help support guiding and outfitting, and contribute to local economies. According to the 2001 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife-Associated Recreation report from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, hunting and fishing generated $235 million in Wyoming, $530 million in Montana, and $542 million in Idaho in 2001.

Carving roads into our unroaded National Forest lands can lead to increased poaching, aggravate human-wildlife conflicts, disrupt animal behavior, interrupt wildlife migrations, and displace species which are sensitive to intrusion. Road networks can distribute noxious weeds that out-compete native species. Roads also lead to increased erosion, creating sediment-clogged streams, and other water quality impacts.

These unroaded backcountry lands have remained wild and unroaded for good reason. Keeping these lands undeveloped is critical to protecting the fish and wildlife of this region. Common sense and broad public agreement support keeping these areas as they are: unroaded, for future generations.