Exploring Perspectives on Public Land Management in Rural Montana and Idaho

This exploratory analysis focuses on current perspectives of rural publics on public land management and posits that demographic shifts in the rural West may be reshaping relationships between rural publics and land managers. Focusing on rural residents in Montana and Idaho (i.e., those living outside of metropolitan or micropolitan counties), this work finds that younger generations and newer residents hold more favorable views of public land managers, compared with the views of older and long-time residents. Interestingly, both support for increasing environmental protections and a history of exposure to vegetation management projects positively predict more favorable views of public land managers. Even for those who favor more preservation of designated Wilderness, exposure to timber harvesting does not negatively affect their views of public land managers, suggesting that rural individuals in the West may now embody a mosaic of values, combining elements of a spiritual preservationist ethic with a pragmatic conservationist approach. This blend of values should provide hope for more fruitful collaborative land management approaches in the future.