Federal officials on Wednesday accepted Virginia's petition to protect nearly 400,000 roadless acres in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests.

Petitions also were accepted from North Carolina and South Carolina to protect remote national forest lands in those states.

The move sets the stage for U.S. Forest Service and state officials to develop rules and take public comments over the next year for governing the national forest roadless areas in those states.

The Forest Service will have the final say.

"I look forward now to working with the Forest Service to develop rules that will achieve the strongest, long-term protection of the maximum amount of undeveloped acreage in our national forests," Gov. Tim Kaine said in a news release.

Conservationists expressed cautious optimism.

"Today marks the next phase of a long and complicated process," said Robert Vandermark, director of the Heritage Forests Campaign. "Protection requested on paper doesn't necessarily translate into protection on the ground. The fate of these roadless areas remains uncertain."

The Bush administration proposed last year to open nearly one-third of remote national forest lands nationwide that were protected from road building, logging and other commercial ventures under a Clinton-era rule.

The 1991 Roadless Area Conservation Rule prohibited road building in these natural areas unless necessary for public health and safety.

The Bush proposal required governors to petition for more, or less, protection than specified under management plans for each national forest.

Mark Warner, Virginia's former governor, was one of the first governors in the country to voice opposition to the Bush proposal. Virginia has the most roadless acreage of any state east of the Mississippi.

"The ball is in the Forest Service's court now, but the states have an important role to play," said David Carr, public lands director for the Southern Environmental Law Center.

"The governors will have to stand fast and the public will have to speak out once again in favor of keeping these lands wild."