Public opinion about management strategies for a low‐profile species across multiple jurisdictions: Whitebark pine in the northern Rockies

Abstract

Abstract As public land managers seek to adopt and implement conservation measures aimed at reversing or slowing the negative effects of climate change, they are looking to understand public opinion regarding different management strategies. This study explores drivers of attitudes towards different management strategies (i.e. no management, protection and restoration) for a low‐profile but keystone tree species, the whitebark pine Pinus albicaulis, in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Since the whitebark pine species has a range that traverses different federal land designations, we examine whether attitudes towards management strategies differ by jurisdiction (i.e. wilderness or federal lands more generally). We conducted a web and mail survey of residents from Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, with 1,617 valid responses and a response rate of 16%. We find that active management strategies have substantially higher levels of support than does no management, with relatively little differentiation across protection and restoration activities or across different land designations. We also find that support for management strategies is not influenced by values (political ideology) but is influenced by beliefs (about material vs. post‐material environmental orientation, global climate change and federal spending for public lands) and some measures of experience (e.g. knowledge of threats). This study helps land managers understand that support for active management of the whitebark pine species is considerable and non‐partisan and that beliefs and experience with whitebark pine trees are important for support. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Keywords

• forests
• Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
• human dimensions
• New Environmental Paradigm
• public land management
• public lands