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IN THE WIND P48 have another powerful ally on our side: a Trump kid. "There certainly has been that debate about transferring federal lands to private or state interests, but I know that Don Jr. is a big supporter of outdoor recreation and I think he stated that he's not in support of transfer of federal lands," Amador said. "And same with Secretary Zinke. He under- stands the important role that federal lands play in outdoor rec- reation and so I don't think we're going to see a lot of that." Their shared belief may be a key reason why Zinke was [report- edly] handpicked by Don Jr. for the role of Secretary of the Inte- rior. Still, with fiscal matters taking precedent, it means changes are coming to federal programs. "One of the most important messages I try to give every- body, both in Congress and the administration, is understanding that one of President Trump's main agendas is to cut bud- gets—cut what many feel what many feel are bloated bureau- cracies in Washington DC in all the agencies and understanding that is what he intends to do. My message was that I certainly understand efforts to cut bloated bureaucracy, but understand that we don't want to impact the recreation staff's ability on the ground to manage recreation opportunities. Trail maintenance, cleaning restrooms, organizing volunteer projects, etc., those are the people we want to sup- port. The boots on the ground. "I don't know what's going to happen with the budget process, but I know that Blue Ribbon, and some of the non-motorized inter- est groups, have been saying the same thing: let's support recreation staff that actually do the work." By all indications, Secretary Zinke agrees with Amador's position while still signaling big changes within the department. "We can take a hit at headquar- ters and middle management, but not on the front line," Zinke stated last week in a meeting with Gla- cier National Park rangers. "Our responsibilities with new technol- ogy, land management and recre- ation will continue to expand. We need to figure out how do we do that in a meaningful way. It's going to require all of us to get out of the box. The goal is reorganizing the department for the next 100 years. I look forward to that." The notion of less federal regu- lations, or none at all, might sound tantalizing to off-roaders who yearn for a time when you were free to ride from your garage out into the hills, but Amador is very much in favor of supporting, and working with government land-use agencies. "We need those field-level staff out on the ground that we all work with from day to day to manage public lands because the last thing we want to do is go back to an era where this is no manage- ment on public lands. It's not the responsible thing to do and it leaves the agencies wide open for new litigation and so it's just going to require OHV to be extremely vigilant and engaged. As these various processes go forward. That's my simple message. "I started riding off-road in the late 60's and early 70's where off-road, we didn't have much of a land ethic," Amador explained. "And over the last 30, 40 years, I'm really proud of what the OHV community has done in embrac- ing environmentally responsible recreation, and that's the best thing long-term. It respects the resources, it respects other user groups and it's the right thing to do. It's simply not an option to go back to the days of unmanaged recreational activities on public land. We've come too far to go backwards." Amador is looking forward to the rollout of a joint effort, a pro- gram the Blue Ribbon Coalition has been working on with the For- est Service. "We've been working on it last three to four years. I think we're going to see the Forest Service roll it out real soon. That, I think, will be a good tool to inspire local forest and ranger districts to gear up their own trail program. Improve what they have or start if they don't have one." It's all the start of what Amador anticipates will be a construc- tive and positive relationship with federal land-use agencies. But above all, his message remains: stay engaged! Jean Turner