Priority of nature versus finances in land management attitudes of rural exurban landowners

Abstract

Exurban development at the urban fringe or in rural areas concerns those involved with resource management, landscape planning, public policy, and community development. Our research objective is to investigate individual characteristics and attitudes that relate to exurban land management attitudes. Survey data from exurban landowners in rural Wyoming are analyzed using multinomial logit regression. Specifically, we investigate factors that are related to the probability of a respondent's choice regarding whether (i) priority should be given to protecting natural resources on their land even if it creates negative economic impacts for them, (ii) natural resources and their finances should be given equal priority, or (iii) their finances should be given priority even if it creates negative impacts to natural resources on their land when making land management decisions. Our results indicate educational messages aimed at reducing negative impacts from exurbanites’ land management decisions should emphasize how individual decisions impact nature and overall sense of “place” for the local area. Moreover, such educational messages should also highlight transboundary effects and potential costs imposed on neighbors. Our results indicate that the effectiveness of exurban management policies would be enhanced by raising costs to landowners via fines or development fees rather than offering subsidies. This approach would have stronger impact due to exurban landowners’ financial concerns, and it may improve benefit–cost ratios associated with agency implementation of a policy as compared to offering subsidies.