John,

My name is Ellen Montgomery, and I'm the director of Environment Colorado's Great Outdoors Campaign.

For more than 25 years, I've been a part of our campaigns to protect America's last wild places. And in that time, there has been no bigger achievement -- and for me personally, no prouder moment -- than the enactment of the 2001 Roadless Rule.1

This historic victory set aside more than 58 million acres of our last wild national forests from logging and road-building, preserving precious wildlife habitat, rivers and lakes that provide drinking water to millions, places for me to hike and camp and for my friends to hunt, fish and climb.

Saving these forests took years of grassroots organizing. I'll never forget the hours I spent going door-to-door and tabling on college campuses, to collect signatures on postcards to the president.

We set an all-time record by delivering more than 1.6 million public comments during the official comment period.2 The logging industry and their army of lobbyists spent millions trying to stop us. But in the end, the voice of people won out, and our last wild forests were protected.

Unfortunately, the reason I'm writing to you today is that the Roadless Rule is suddenly now on the brink of total repeal.

In June, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced plans to junk the entire Roadless Rule and open up all these magnificent old-growth forests to rampant clear-cutting and road-building.3

I was stunned when I heard. We've seen attacks on the Roadless Rule before, but nothing like this. But once the initial shock wore off, we immediately got to work putting together a plan to save the Roadless Rule.

But before I tell you more about our plans, I need to be completely honest with you: We're going to need an urgent influx of funding to put this full plan into action, and we're counting on your help.

Will you make a donation to help jump-start our campaign to defend the Roadless Rule and protect our forests?

Our campaign plan takes inspiration from the original effort to enact the Roadless Rule by focusing on building a broad coalition of people from all walks of life who support protecting our last wild forests.

This is not a partisan issue. Whether you consider yourself a conservative or a progressive, a Republican, Democrat or Independent, we all share a deep love of the great outdoors.

Go hiking on a trail in one of these vast old-growth forests, and you'll meet hunters, teachers, church leaders, students and retirees. You'll talk to vegetarians and meat-eaters. Prius drivers and off-roaders.

These forests bring all Americans together, and that's what our campaign will do as well.

Together, we'll team up with organizations representing these diverse constituencies to once again flood the U.S. Forest Service with public comments supporting roadless protections. We'll organize district meetings, panel discussions and hikes to roadless areas with journalists and elected officials. And with your help, we'll run targeted paid advertisements to ensure that the public knows exactly what's at stake.

We know this fight won't be quick or easy. But once these wild forests are gone, they're gone forever. That's why we're once again launching a nationwide effort to protect them -- and your donations are absolutely vital to power everything we do.

So please, donate whatever you can afford right now to help defend our last wild forests.

Thank you,

1. "Special Areas; Roadless Area Conservation," Federal Register, January 12, 2001.
2. Ellen Montgomery, "What is the roadless rule and what does it mean for the Tongass?," Environment America, January 25, 2023.
3. "Secretary Rollins Rescinds Roadless Rule, Eliminating Impediment to Responsible Forest Management," U.S. Department of Agriculture, June 23, 2025.

Your donation will be used to support all of our campaigns to protect the environment, from saving the bees and protecting public lands, to standing up for clean water and fighting climate change. None of our work would be possible without supporters like you. Environment Colorado may transfer up to $50 per dues-paying member per year into the Environment Colorado Small Donor Committee.