Editor's note: This rulling is exceptionally good news for all who value roadless areas. We still have some work to do in Idaho, where the state's roadless plan has ceded more than 400,000 acres over to the phosphate mining industry.

The U.S. Supreme Court closed the book Monday on an era in American conservation history that had all but ended more than a decade ago.

The court rejected an appeal challenging the 2001 Clinton roadless rule that stopped logging and road building on 58 million acres of national forests. There are still a couple of legal cases hanging but the rule, which said keep roadless forests essentially as they are, has passed through the legal gantlet.

Idaho’s separate roadless rule for managing the state’s 9.3 million acres of roadless lands was upheld by U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill, and is up for appeal before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. A hearing is scheduled in Portland Nov. 9.

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