When compared with the Nation, the South is more rural, nonwhite, and poorly educated, with lower median household income.
From 1980 to 1990, total population increased at a higher rate in the South (14.16 percent) than in the Nation (9.78 percent). Most of the increase was in the major cities such as Atlanta, GA, Austin, TX, Dallas, TX, and Miami, FL, and along the eastern coastline. Some decrease occurred in the Southern Appalachians, the Mississippi River Basin, and the western Texas and Oklahoma Panhandle.
Southern areas with population losses since 1980 are generally more rural, have more nonwhite residents, and have lower median household incomes than areas with population increases.
Southern residents hold stronger (more intense) values about public than private forests. Among four values of forests mentioned to respondents, the one considered most important was clean air, and the one rated as least important was wood production.
Southern residents have moderately strong proenvironmental attitudes. They favor additional funding of environmental protection and stricter environmental laws and regulations.
A review of the related literature reveals a strong and fundamental shift over the past two decades in public values about forests and their management. Values have shifted away from a commodity-oriented, anthropocentric approach to forest management and toward inclusion of natural biological factors in a biocentric approach.
Southern women and younger people have stronger biocentric values about forests and stronger proenvironmental attitudes than men and older people. There are only minor differences in environmental attitudes and values between urban and rural residents, and by length of residence, land ownership, race, and region within the South.
