Washington State! Keep Our Public Lands Open For Shooting!

Washington State Department of Natural Resources Wants To Add MORE Regulations To Regulate Our Forest Lands.

To "WaDNR", the Washington State Department of Natural Resources,

We, the taxpayers pay for our lands that the Department of Natural Resources seems to limit activities on more and more each year. Being as we pay for our lands and are by statute, provided access to, we should be able to recreate on those lands!

DNR, enforce the laws already on the books! Don't create new laws or rules to address "problems" that can be controlled with an effective current, adequate, relevant enforcement of the existing laws.

Return your enforcement focus back to Resource Protection and reduce the "public use" law enforcement emphasis! Far more damage is being done by thefts, fires, illegal/improper resource harvests, etc. than by trail riding, target shooting and campground antics.

You're in the natural resource generation and protection business primarily. Granted, the lands are required to be and should be open for public use. The taxes and fees paid by taxpayers and resource users are more than adequate for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources to effectively maintain and protect the resources as required by the Revised Codes of Washington  (RCW's) and the Washington Administrative Codes (WAC's).

Do your job, don't shut us out. Don't herd us into areas that inhibit relevant, harmless recreational activities. Enforce the laws that are already on the books and adjust the focus of the Department's law enforcement back to protecting the resource, not enforcement of "permit" violations relating to public recreational use.

The reorganization of the Department a decade or two ago shifted the focus of the department from regulation of a mandated function to regulation of a political function.

Return the Department's priorities back to what the Department's mandated functions should be. The protection of our resources, open access to public lands and equal representation to user groups, not what gets folks elected.

IMHO