ABSTRACT
A legal trust is created by separating the ownership of something from its use. In a private trust, a person places some resources in a trust to be managed according to the person’s wishes by a trustee for the benefit of certain named beneficiaries. The primary difference between the private and the public trust is the lack of a written document for the latter. One of the very few ironclad rules for the creation of a private trust is that explicit instructions must be provided for the trustee to follow in administering the trust. Applying the public trust doctrine to the environment was resurrected from English law and previously overlooked US cases by Joseph Sax, lawyer and legal scholar. The objective of the public trust has evolved in tandem with the changing public perception of the values and uses of waterways.
