A new survey suggests that conservation and national parks rise above partisan politics in Montana, where most residents support efforts to protect public lands and view the state’s open spaces as economic drivers.
“The big takeaway is that national parks and conservation are about as popular and bipartisan issues as you can find these days,” said Rick Graetz, director of the University of Montana’s Crown of the Continent and Greater Yellowstone Initiative, which commissioned the second biannual Public Lands Survey of 500 registered Montana voters.
Graetz said the aim of the survey is to take the temperature of public opinion and gain a better understanding of how public land discussions influence voters, as well as track changes in public sentiment toward conservation. This year’s survey was meant to coincide with the 100-year anniversary of the founding of the National Park Service.
The poll surveyed 500 registered voters in Montana and was conducted by Republican pollster Lori Weigel, of Public Opinion Strategies, and Democratic pollster Dave Metz, of Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates.
Eighty-two percent of Republicans, 88 percent of Independents and 98 percent of Democrats say support for conservation and public lands are important factors in deciding which candidates to vote for.
The survey found that more Montanans have shifted their thinking about public lands as an economic stimulator, and that more residents of all political stripes identify as conservationists.
In 2014, when the survey was first conducted, 62 percent of those polled said public lands had a positive impact on jobs and the economy, and 14 percent said the effect was negative. This year, 77 percent said lands positively impact the economy and jobs while a mere 6 percent said the effect was negative.
“Compared to our first survey, jobs and the economy are now seen on par with many of the other benefits of protecting public lands,” Weigel said. “A 15 percent boost in voter opinion in two years is significant.”
Linking public lands and national parks to economic stimulus has been at the fore of a movement led by conservation groups and tourism bureaus to shift public perception away from the traditional belief that industry and natural resource extraction are the premier economic drivers in the mountain west.
The survey comes on the heels of a National Park Service report showing that visitors to national parks in Montana spent $478.3 million in the state in 2015.
A total of 4.96 million people visited national parks in Montana last year. Last year’s total was a 10.6 percent increase in spending and an 8.2 percent rise in visitation over 2014.
Visitors to Glacier National Park spent an estimated $198 million in the surrounding communities, according to the report. This spending supported an estimated 3,474 jobs.
Those surveyed said national parks provide more than just economic benefits through tourism – they also serve to improve overall quality of life, protect cultural heritage and protect the environment.
Montanans view Glacier and Yellowstone national parks as “treasures” critical to the state’s economy and to future generations, and the vast majority believe national parks are in need of additional funds to manage and preserve the parks,” the new survey finds.
The survey also asked Montana voters to weigh in on a number of current policy debates affecting public lands in the state. These include:
- 70 percent of Montanans oppose drilling in the Badger-Two Medicine area near Glacier National Park – land long considered sacred to the Blackfeet Indian Tribe.
- 74 percent support the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project, which strengthens protections for 85,000 acres of land in western Montana while opening new areas for motorized recreation and timber harvest.
- 61 percent of Montanans oppose proposed mines on the Yellowstone River near the north entrance of Yellowstone National Park.
The survey also found the majority of voters feel resource extraction like mining or drilling is not appropriate on public lands important to Native Americans or recreationalists, and lands located near national parks.
Graetz said his program doesn’t take positions, but he hopes the results enable more discussion as public lands debates around drilling and mining continue to unfold in the Crown of the Continent and Greater Yellowstone ecosystems.
“This survey paints a picture of how seriously Montanans take their outdoor heritage,” he said. “Conservation and how best to protect and manage our public lands will continue to be central to political discussions and voters’ decisions long past Election Day.”
A summary of the results and the full survey is online at http://crown-yellowstone.umt.edu/2016-voter-survey/. The 2016 Public Lands Survey was conducted by telephone on May 7 and May 9-11, with a margin of error of +/- 4.38 percent.