In 2020, Americans could only sit back and watch their cities burn because of Black Lives Matter. After my daughter, Meadow, was killed in the Parkland school shooting, and because of policies inspired by Black Lives Matter, I decided to move to the countryside.
But this summer, I can only watch as the countryside around me burns at the hands of yet another BLM, or Bureau of Land Management, and when President Donald Trump retakes the Oval Office, he must address the root causes of this self-inflicted arson.
As with the BLM fires that have raged in urban areas, the Biden-Harris Administration will have to dispel the impression that it has ignored the ongoing wildfires in the rural West to score political points. The land is burning, and the Biden-Harris Administration is blaming it on climate change. President Biden To tell “Wildfires are intensifying due to climate change,” he wrote, and used the opportunity to impose Restrictions on logging, and the media will report on it, claiming that the only way to keep America from literally burning down is to keep electing Democrats.
But that’s not the real problem, and that’s not the way to solve the problem.
I own a ranch in rural Oregon that borders Bureau of Land Management land. I can see very clearly where my land ends, my neighbor’s land ends, and where the BLM land ends. The trees on my land are lush and healthy, but the trees on the BLM land are dead.
Beetles are killing these trees, but unlike private land, the Forest Service doesn’t care for them. property. Cedar and pine tree Spraying insecticides can kill the beetles. Douglas fir beetles are generally prefer Larger trees, 12-14 inches in diameter. Cutting back older trees once infestation begins can help control the infestation. This is something private landowners do, but not the BLM.
Sometimes, it can be counterproductive for humans to leave the environment completely untouched. Take hunting, for example. If we leave deer and elk populations alone, they will become too numerous, leading to overgrazing, creating a boom-and-bust cycle where there isn’t enough food for all the animals. The population then crashes and there is mass starvation. This is not a very humane outcome.
Similarly, BLM policies have led to forest neglect, resulting in dead trees and fires, and calls for more restrictions on private land use. President Trump needs to break this destructive cycle. Appointing someone who actually owned private forest land to head the BLM would be a good start. Implementing Schedule F to make it easier to actually change BLM policies would be another good move.
But ultimately, American land would be better managed by the American people. With the government running huge deficits, selling federal lands would be a win-win: it would reduce the deficit, increase the nation’s productivity, and help prevent wildfires that cost billions of dollars in damage.
Personally, I am tired of seeing America burn for political gain, and I hope and believe that if Trump returns to office, he will stop this sad cycle.
Andrew Pollack is Why Meadow Died: The People and Policies that Caused the Parkland Shooting and Endangered America’s Students.
