What We Stand For: Outdoor Tech and the Places We Play

What We Stand For: Outdoor Tech and the Places We Play

This is not a campaign email. It is a statement of where Outdoor Tech stands on the issues that affect the places our products were built for. Public lands. Clean water. Wild places. The Roadless Rule. And the business case for protecting all of it.

Every product Outdoor Tech makes exists because wild places do. The Chips in your helmet, the Range at the campsite, the Beacon on a pre-dawn trail approach: none of it matters without the places those products live in. That is not a marketing line. It is a supply chain reality. The outdoor recreation industry contributes over $1.2 trillion annually to the U.S. economy. Every dollar of that value traces back to the existence of accessible, healthy, undeveloped wild places.

When those places are threatened, it is not just a conservation issue. It is a threat to the economic foundation of every outdoor brand, every outdoor retailer, every guide service, every mountain town, and every community that depends on recreation as a driver of local income. Outdoor Tech is a small company. But we are part of an industry that is large enough to have a real voice on these issues. And we intend to use it.

In 2001, the U.S. Forest Service implemented the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, one of the most significant and popular conservation measures in American history. The rule placed meaningful limits on road construction, logging, and mineral extraction across nearly 58.5 million acres of national forest land in 38 states. For 25 years, it has protected some of the most spectacular backcountry recreation landscapes in the country, intact wildlife corridors, and watersheds that supply drinking water to more than 25 million Americans.

In the summer of 2025, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a review and consideration of full rescission of the Roadless Rule. On August 18, 2026, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that the U.S. Forest Service had filed a proposed rule to rescind the Roadless Rule in its entirety, removing protections from more than 45 million acres of national forest land. Colorado and Idaho are exempted under separate state-level rules, but the remaining 45 million acres across 37 states would be opened to road construction, industrial logging, mining, and oil and gas extraction.

Source: The Conservation Alliance, Defenders of Wildlife, Wikipedia Roadless Area Conservation. Figures as of September 2026.

The USDA's stated justification is wildfire risk reduction and states' rights over forest management. The outdoor and conservation community has pushed back directly: recent research found that wildfire ignitions are roughly four times more likely near roads than in roadless forests. Adding roads does not reduce fire risk. It increases it. The U.S. Forest Service already manages 386,000 miles of existing roads and faces an estimated $10.8 billion in deferred road maintenance. More roads mean more long-term costs to taxpayers, not less.

The public comment period on the proposed rescission is open through October 6, 2026. This is the last opportunity for the public to weigh in before the rescission is finalized.

Inventoried Roadless Areas are the anchors of communities that rely on them. They border Wilderness Areas, protect headwaters, maintain wildlife corridors, and provide the backcountry access that defines much of the outdoor recreation industry. Backcountry skiing, climbing, hiking, hunting, angling, mountain biking: the landscapes that make these activities possible exist largely because the Roadless Rule has protected them for 25 years.

Water

Roadless areas protect more than 82,000 miles of streams and rivers in the continental United States. The water that drains these watersheds supplies drinking water to at least 25 million Americans, with several states sourcing over one-third of their drinking water from these areas. Roads increase sediment runoff, degrade water quality, and fragment the hydrological systems that intact forests maintain naturally. Rescinding the Roadless Rule does not just risk recreation access. It risks water supplies.

Wildlife

Roadless areas provide critical habitat for more than 1,600 threatened, endangered, or sensitive plant and animal species. The contiguous, undeveloped character of these landscapes is what makes them function as wildlife corridors. Fragment them with roads and the corridor function disappears, regardless of whether the individual parcels remain nominally protected.

Recreation and Economy

The outdoor recreation economy is a $1.2 trillion industry. A significant portion of that value is generated in and around national forest roadless areas: backcountry ski operations, guiding companies, outfitters, gear retailers, and the communities that serve them. A rollback of the Roadless Rule does not just affect conservation. It affects the economic viability of the outdoor industry and every business, large or small, that depends on access to intact national forest landscapes.

The proposed rescission of the Roadless Rule does not exist in isolation. It is part of a pattern of federal decisions in 2025 and 2026 that have reduced protections for public lands across the country. Bears Ears National Monument lost 91% of its protected acreage. Grand Staircase-Escalante lost 90%. The Roadless Rule, if rescinded, would represent the largest single rollback of public land protections in American history by acreage.

Outdoor Tech has taken a position on each of these issues through our membership in The Conservation Alliance and our participation in the Brands for Public Lands coalition. We signed the business letter urging the Administration to restore protections for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. We stand behind TCA's campaign to defend the Roadless Rule. And we believe the outdoor industry has both the right and the responsibility to advocate for the landscapes our businesses depend on.

Outdoor Tech joined The Conservation Alliance in 2021. In five years of membership, a portion of every purchase at outdoortechnology.com has gone directly toward TCA's conservation work: protecting over 124 million acres, 4,964 river miles, and funding $34.5 million in grassroots grants to local organizations across North America.

In 2026, we joined Brands for Public Lands, a coalition of outdoor businesses organized by TCA, working collectively to defend America's public lands through business advocacy. Through BPL, we signed the coalition letter opposing the monument reductions at Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante alongside more than 115 outdoor businesses. The same coalition is engaged on the Roadless Rule.

These are not cause-marketing campaigns. They are business decisions. The places our products were built for deserve the same commitment we bring to building the products themselves.

What you can do:

Submit a public comment on the Roadless Rule rescission before October 6 2026, at regulations.gov (Docket FS-2025-0001)

Learn more about TCA's Roadless Rule campaign at conservationalliance.com/priority-campaign/defending-the-roadless-rule

Learn about Brands for Public Lands at conservationalliance.com/brands-for-public-lands

Support outdoor brands that stand behind the places their products were built for

Standing behind public lands is one part of the commitment. The other is how we run the business day to day. Outdoor Tech works with carbon-neutral shipping partners on DTC orders whenever feasible. We have eliminated single-use plastics from our packaging on all products since 2024. And we source responsibly and work with suppliers who share our commitment to environmental standards.

These are not perfect solutions, and we do not claim they are. But they reflect a genuine attempt to align the way we operate with the values we hold publicly. Protecting the places we play extends beyond policy advocacy. It includes every operational decision we make.

The Roadless Rule protects places people go to be outside. Backcountry ski zones. Climbing areas. Trail systems. River corridors. Watersheds that supply water to towns and cities downstream. These are not abstractions. They are the places our customers use our products, and the places that make the outdoor industry possible.

We will keep standing behind them. And we will keep making gear for the people who do the same.

Outdoor Tech is a proud member of The Conservation Alliance and Brands for Public Lands. A portion of every purchase at outdoortechnology.com supports conservation work across North America. Sources: The Conservation Alliance, USDA Forest Service, Trout Unlimited, Defenders of Wildlife, Pew Charitable Trusts, Federal Register Docket FS-2025-0001.