One of the forests targeted is the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest near Deer Lodge, Montana. (Image credit: stitched photography via Getty Images) This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist, WABE , Atlanta’s NPR station; and WBEZ , a public radio station serving the Chicago metropolitan region. When most people think about national forests, they imagine vast Western landscapes: Alaska, the Rockies, the Pacific Northwest. But millions of acres of federal woodlands dot the eastern half of the country, too. These great swaths of vibrant ecosystems have long been free of roads, protected by a policy called, appropriately enough, the "roadless rule." Adopted in 2001 during the final days of the Clinton administration, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule , as it is formally known, grew out of a realization within the U.S. Forest Service that it had built more roads than it could afford to maintain.…