There is in the West a deep love of the land, coupled with a desire to see it conserved with clean air and water, healthy wildlife habitat, and rich recreational opportunities on public lands. That has been a consistent message through the past five years of voter sentiments surveyed for Colorado College and its annual State of the Rockies reports.

As part of its 2023 survey results, the college noted that in each of the past five years at least 65 percent of those surveyed in eight states — Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana Nevada, New Mexico, and Wyoming — said they preferred that their congressional delegations would protect natural resources on public lands rather than opening the lands up to energy development. The percentage actually increased to 69 percent of those surveyed in 2019, before dipping slightly to 68 percent in the latest survey conducted in January.

Support to protect 30 percent of the country's lands and waters for nature by 2030 was very strong, with 82 percent of those surveyed backing that goal.

And while politicians in ruby red corners of the region oppose the use of The Antiquities Act by presidents to designate national monuments, the 2023 survey shows that, collectively across the eight states, more than 80 percent of those surveyed support such action. 

"I was not surprised," Brian Kurzel said of the high support for conservation values.

The National Wildlife Federation’s regional executive director for the Rocky Mountain Region, Kurzel said the duration of the surveys, now in their 13th edition, has consistently shown support across the political spectrum for a healthy environment."

"When it breaks down, there's 37 percent Republican participation, 31 percent Independent, 31 percent Democrat, it's very evenly split in terms of kind of political party," he said during the Traveler's weekly podcast. "But no matter whether it's urban folks or whether it's rural folks in the West, there's often a reason why people either have lived here, and their families have lived here for generations, or why they've moved here. And that often has to do with the natural values that we have in the West. And whether that is an interest of a family being able to go and hang out and have a picnic in a nice park nearby, or whether it is somebody who has been hunting with their grandfather for generations. Westerners tend to lean towards really identifying and recognizing the value of good air, water, wildlife, and land. And that's what this this survey reflects."

The poll surveyed at least 400 registered voters in each of the eight Western states for a total 3,413-voter sample, which included an over-sample of Black and Native American voters. The survey was conducted between January 5-22, and the effective margin of error is +2.4 percent at the 95 percent confidence interval for the total sample; and at most +4.9 percent for each state.

Among the findings:

• 85 percent support constructing wildlife crossing structures across major highways that intersect with known migration routes.
• 84 percent support creating new national parks, national monuments, and national wildlife refuges and tribal protected areas to protect historic sites or areas of outdoor recreation.
• 67 percent support gradually transitioning to 100 percent of energy being produced from clean, renewable sources like solar and wind over the next ten to fifteen years.
• 76 percent support directing funding to ensure adequate access to parks and natural areas for lowerincome people and communities of color that disproportionately lack them.
• 85 percent support ensuring Native American Tribes have greater input into decisions made about areas on national public lands that contain sites sacred or culturally important to their tribe.
• Collectively, 84 percent of the voters across the eight states supported the ability of the President of the United States to use The Antiquities Act to designate national monuments.

Yet despite these poll results, not all congressional delegations seem to be supporting their voters' wishes. The battles in Utah over the designations of both Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by President Clinton back in 1996 and Bears Ears National Monument by President Obama in 2016 certainly seem contrary to the polling.

"Some of the issues are broader, and some of them are very local. And some of them are affecting the landscape," said Kurzel. "And some of them are decisions that people make at their kitchen tables. And so I think that is where you see maybe some disconnect, is that a person who depends on hunting for putting food on their table, they're going to consider themselves a conservationist, and then other factors come in, right in terms of what is the local economy built on? What are the opportunities for the future economy? How can people infuse money into their communities rather than seeing it being drained? And so that's where a lot of the rubber meets the road and some of the policies that either do or do not get support on Capitol Hill or in the state capitals."

The National Wildlife Federation official added that "what I see in these poll results is an opportunity to draw lines more clearly between what people value and what decisions their leaders are making, right? And some of that is just making sure people understand the implications of various issues. So I'll highlight one that got a lot of support in here, which was about the importance of oil and gas companies cleaning up lands that are degraded from development, over 80 percent in every state, all eight states were in support of that. And so some of this is just our ability as conservationists, the media's ability to lift up stories, etc., that don't necessarily say an industry is bad and must go away. But rather, how are there ways to do this in a responsible way that really aligns with Westerners values. And in this case, for example, it sounds very clear that there should be some bonding policies that assure that companies are responsible for cleaning up the mess that they made."

The survey dug into other issues of the day. For instance:

• Most voters said "urgent action" was needed to address water shortages in the Colorado River Basin.
• Voters in the region are highly concerned about the ongoing drought, which has been uninterrupted for 22 years.
• Seventy-five percent of those surveyed said they are seriously concerned about the number of people moving into their state.
• Inflation and the price of gas ranked highly as "new stressors among Western voters."

"Westerners are more worried about drought, water availability, low levels in our rivers, than they are about the price of gasoline," said Kurzel. "I note that as a way to say that the challenge that we are facing, with the changing climate and particularly the aridifcation of the West, that is real, people are learning and are seeing it every day, whether their grass is yellow instead of green, the reservoirs are low, and it's not a fun place to recreate anymore. Or things that are more expensive in terms of water rates that we're paying. And so I just wanted to highlight  that jumped out at me not as a surprise, but something that especially in places like Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah, that people are paying a lot of attention to, and especially with things that have been in the news about the Colorado River Basin and the reservoirs here in that basin. This is something that's on people's mind, and I was reassured to see that they're paying attention."

Traveler postscript: You can find the survey and dig deeper into the results at this site. And you can catch the entire podcast interview with Brian Kurzell in Episode 209--Western Views.