My friend on Facebook made a statement about forests in California, as an ongoing conversation about the current fires and President Trump’s ill-informed comment. My friend shared:

“Federal govt owns all but 2% of forestry in California.”

I’ll offer an important reinterpretation of “federal govt owns”. The reality is “federal govt managed lands in the public trust”.

These public lands are owned by WE THE PEOPLE. However, many in public land management truly do believe their respective agencies “own” OUR public lands.

I worked for the BLM and left because of the prevailing attitude of:

“The public are too stupid to know what to do with public lands so we must protect them from themselves.”

What I’m asking is for folks to remember federally managed lands (such as those lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, and the United States Forest Service) belong to US and it is our responsibility to ensure access to public lands remains OURS. This is the truth and reality, and don’t let anyone say otherwise.