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Attitudes and Values Toward Public and Private Forests

Wood production was generally rated as the least important of the four values associated with forests and clean air as the most important (table 7.3 and table 7.4). However, some differences existed between public and private forests. The provision of wood products was valued higher for private forests than for public forests, and the provision of clean air was valued lower for private forests than for public forests. These results suggest that respondents held stronger values about public than private forests. They strongly believe that public forests should provide clean air and should not provide wood products, but do not hold such restrictive values for private forests.

A majority of respondents felt that (1) “too little” was being spent on protecting the environment (62.5 percent) versus only 9.2 percent who reported “too much,” and (2) environmental laws had gone “not far enough” (45.5 percent) versus only 13.1 percent who thought that the laws had gone “too far.” A mean score of 23.75 on the modified NEP (range from 10 to 50) suggests a moderately strong proenvironmental attitude. Individual item scores for the modified NEP are shown in table 7.2.