No, but I do believe that the people who actually own these lands almost universally think that the government unnecessarily interferes with their ability to make small improvements that don’t meaningfully impact wildlife.

I agree with this kind of oversight. But as someone with a friend who is both an environmentalist and does own land adjacent to a river and land managed by the national forest service, the latitude for what you can actually do without serious oversight is essentially nothing. Luckily what he wants to do is essentially nothing, but even the very minimal bits he does want to do—which includes making fire breaks in a populated area which is wildfire-prone—is questionable.

It’s been eye opening to see the lengths he’s had to go to in order to stay on the right side of things. And it’s given me a decent perspective on the burden it puts on even those who want do to be responsible landowners.

It’s also been interesting to learn about the perverse incentives it does put on those who own this kind of land. One example is that new paths generally can’t be cleared, except when a wildfire happens, if you can justify it as part of firefighting or fire prevention efforts. So if and when there is a fire nearby, bulldozers come out in droves. I’ll leave you to connect that to what might be the root cause of some of these fires.