Wildfires Spark Public Debate on Land Management says USU Scientist

How much trust you place in federal, state and local agencies to restore land blackened by wildfire and prevent future outbreaks may be determined by where you live, says a Utah State University researcher.

“Rural residents, whose living is tied to the land, tend to blame nature when things go wrong,” says Mark Brunson, professor and head of USU’s Department of Environment and Society. “Urban residents are more likely to place the blame on human activities.”

Brunson’s observations are among findings of a public survey on land management published in the July 2011 issue of Rangeland Ecology and Management. In “Public Perceptions of Sagebrush Ecosystem Management in the Great Basin,” he and Oregon State University colleagues Bruce Shindler, Ryan Gordon and Christine Olsen examine residents’ attitudes toward specific land management practices, trust in management agencies and interactions with personnel from such agencies as the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.

The researchers surveyed more than 1,300 citizens of the Great Basin region, which covers 190,000 square miles in Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Oregon and California. The project was conducted as part of the multi-university SageSTEP research program, for which Brunson serves as a principal investigator, and funded by the U.S Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Interior’s Joint Fire Science Program.

“When driving across the West through seemingly endless stretches of open range and sagebrush, you might assume the Great Basin is a quintessentially rural place,” Brunson says. “But when you think about the humans in the landscape, that’s actually not the case. There are ten times more urban residents — living mainly in Salt Lake City, Boise and Reno and surrounding suburbs — than rural residents in the Great Basin.”

Traditionally dominated by sagebrush, the region’s shrinking rangelands are being invaded by nonnative grasses and woody plants that alter fire regimes by providing more flammable fuel. About 70 percent of remaining sagebrush habitat is under federal management. The two main caretakers, the USFS and BLM, list restoration of sagebrush lands as a top priority.

While a substantial number of survey respondents recognize threats to sagebrush habitat, the survey reveals that urban and rural residents view land management practices quite differently. For example, when land management issues force trade-offs between economic and environmental values, urban residents favor environmental preservation, showing less concern with economic consequences. Rural residents, who typically live and work closer to the land, tend to show equal consideration of economic and environmental values.

“We also noted that urban residents are more likely to oppose restoration efforts using herbicides and mechanical methods such as chaining to remove trees,” Brunson says. “Rural residents cite grazing and felling trees as more acceptable land management practices than their urban counterparts.”

The “urban-rural divide” doesn’t surprise the USU researcher.

“Rural and urban residents experience rangelands and these lands’ disturbances very differently,” he says.

Take, for example, wildfires. In the wake of land infernos, many rural residents will have experienced property damage and disruption of their livelihoods or will at least know someone who’s experienced these misfortunes.

“In contrast, urban residents experience wildfires as smoke pollution,” Brunson says.

Residents of northern Utah will also readily recall episodes of ‘mud rain,’ the phenomenon of wind and rain picking up dust particles from stretches of scorched land where plants have not yet reestablished themselves and streaking freshly washed windows and vehicles.

Public perception of land management activities is increasingly important to agencies, Brunson says, because today’s natural resource managers are spending more and more time managing relationships between resources and society than managing the resources themselves.

“Managers often draw more on their knowledge of social sciences than environmental sciences,” he says. “The challenge is not just understanding and protecting the resources, but understanding the many stakeholders who want to benefit from the resources.”

Related links: