Officially known as “inventoried roadless areas,” roadless areas are protected under a federal rule enacted 25 years ago that generally prohibits logging and road-building. In Montana they cover about one-third of the state’s 17 million acres of public land administered by the U.S. Forest Service. …The original intent of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, in part, was to curb the spread of roads and development into the agency’s wildest landscapes. It was also a recognition that the Forest Service’s sprawling road network — today comprising 368,000 miles — was already beyond its capacity to maintain. …President Donald Trump’s administration announced last summer it would move to rescind that roadless rule, effectively returning those lands to the land-use designations established by each individual national forest. Last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, released a lengthy analysis looking at the pros and cons of doing so.