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Methods

Three different methods were used to answer the question. In the first method, population data for 1980, 1990, and 1999 (projected) were mapped at the county scale using ArcView 3.1 (Environmental Systems Research Institute 1996). In the second method, 1,423 randomly sampled residents of the 13 states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia) were interviewed by telephone. In the third method, a literature review was conducted.

Nine social, economic, and demographic population variables were mapped (table 7.1). Median household incomes were adjusted with the Consumer Price Index (Woodrow 2000) to reflect 1980-dollar amounts. For all variables, percent change was computed as (1990 value minus 1980 value)/1980 value.

The telephone survey (about 2 minutes) was part of the National Survey on Recreation and the Environment (NSRE) (about 20 minutes) administered by the Human Dimensions Research Laboratory at the University of Tennessee during fall 2000. Telephone numbers were generated from a random-digit dialing sample of valid telephone exchanges. Respondents were selected by asking for the resident in the household, over the age of 16 years, with the most recent birthday. By including refusals from known eligible respondents, i.e., household residents known to have the most recent birthday, and deleting the number of “never-contacted” numbers, the response rate was 52.3. This percent includes partial completes of 3.6, hearing-impaired respondents of 2.0, callbacks that were never recontacted of 3.0, and known eligible refusals of 39.1.

Forest values were measured in two ways: (1) as individual-preference “assigned” values, which provide a measure of the relative worth or importance of forest objects, and (2) as individual-preference “held” values, which provide a measure of the relatively enduring conception of the “good” (or bad) related to forests. Both approaches were used, because there is no consensus in the social-psychological literature as to which is better. In both approaches, the same four objects (taken from Xu and Bengston 1997) were used: wood products (utilitarian), clean air (life support), scenic beauty (aesthetic), and heritage (spiritual). Respondents were asked to rank the four objects in their relative order of importance from highest (most important) to lowest (least important) for (1) private forests and (2) public forests. The most important object was given a score/rank of 1 and the least important 4. The four objects were read to the respondents in a random order by the interviewer to avoid bias in ranking. For held values, each object was rated from 1 “agree” to 4 “disagree,” where low scores indicated a higher value.

Three types of environmental attitudes were assessed. First, attitudes toward environmental protection were measured by asking respondents, “Do you think that we’re spending too much, too little, or about the right amount of money on protecting the environment?” Second, attitudes toward environmental laws were measured by asking respondents, “At present, do you think that our environmental laws and regulations have gone too far, not far enough, or have struck about the right balance?” Third, general environmental concern (including private property issues) was measured using a modified (10-item) version of the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) scale (Dunlap and Van Liere 1978), in which 6 of the original 12 items were deleted (due to sexist and/or outdated terminology), 1 item was reworded, and 4 new items were added (table 7.2). The 10 items in the modified NEP scale were rated on a 5-point response scale from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” with a midpoint of “neither.” Possible scores ranged from 10 (representing a highly favorable attitude) to 50 (highly unfavorable attitude). Cronbach’s alpha for the modified NEP was 0.70.

Urban residents were oversampled because of the greater proportion of southern residents in metropolitan areas. One-way ANOVA (using the Scheffe method) and Pearson Correlation in SPSS/PC+ (Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences 1998) were used to examine differences in environmental attitudes and forest values among the social and demographic groups.