Poll: Western voters want more protection for public land, wildlife
Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) As Congress and the Trump administration have tried to reduce public land and environmental protections over the past year, Westerners, regardless of political affiliation, are increasingly supportive of environmental protections, according to an annual poll.
On Wednesday, Colorado College released the 16th annual Conservation in the West Poll, which surveys voters in eight Western states to “better understand how Western voters think about conservation values,” according to Ian Johnson, Colorado College Strategic Initiatives and Sustainability director. In 2011, the poll surveyed voters in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico, and added Arizona, Nevada and Idaho in subsequent years.
For the past 16 years, the bipartisan pollsters, Republican pollster New Bridge Strategies and Democratic pollster FM3, have asked some of the same questions, and each year, the support for public lands or environmental protection has slowly inched up. But this year, the poll saw significant bipartisan jumps in support percentages related to a number of questions, including those regarding opposition to the rollback in protective laws and the importance of conservation compared to other issues like the economy.
“I think what we’re seeing is, now that things are happening, the level of concern is very different,” said Lori Weigel, New Bridge Strategies pollster, during a press conference. “We’re seeing greater intensity - even compared to the first Trump administration - where people are saying these funding cuts are really a problem. I went back and looked at 2011, and we were asking about budget cuts, but it was nowhere the level of intensity and concern. In fact, we were asking about state budget cuts, not federal budget cuts. It just feels like it’s more tangible.”
During 2025, President Donald Trump signed executive orders that have led Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to make several changes to the Forest Service, including proposals to rescind the Roadless Rule and the reorganization of the regional offices. Similar changes are being made under the Department of the Interior, which oversees the Bureau of Land Management and the Fish and Wildlife Service where managers proposed changes to weaken the Endangered Species Act. Under the Trump administration, DOGE laid off or forced the resignation of thousands of federal employees. Finally, recent Congressional funding bills have slashed funding for federal agencies.
When the pollsters conducted their survey in early January following these changes, they found voters were more concerned than ever about the threats to public land, water and wildlife in their state.
Almost 85% said rollbacks of land, water and wildlife protections are a serious problem, up from 68% in 2018. That includes 74% of Republicans, 87% of independents and 94% of Democrats.
“Big differences here from what we saw eight or seven years ago. We’re really seeing a big bump up in terms of overall concern,” Wiegel said. “In fact, a majority in every single state except Wyoming - Wyoming is just a tick below - are telling us it’s an extremely or very serious problem. And it’s across the board in terms of partisan perspective.”
Another big jump was observed when voters were asked whether they want Congress to protect natural resources or maximize energy production on public lands. This year, 76% of Western voters and 75% of Montanans said they wanted to prioritize protection of air, water and wildlife resources. That’s a jump of 11 percentage points since 2019, and it’s a bipartisan increase, with 62% of Republicans now saying they prioritize resource protection compared to 48% in 2019.
A significant majority of Westerners like things the way they were when it comes to environmental laws. More than three-quarters of voters consider the reduction in Clean Water Act protections for wetlands and small streams to be negative, with half of voters saying it’s very negative. Almost 70% of voters say they consider the removal of oil and gas requirements to limit methane gas leaks as having negative effects, with half saying the effects are very negative.
Voters also don’t support rollbacks of Endangered Species Act protections, with 70% saying it has a negative effect and 45% saying they’re very negative. More than 85% of voters, including 85% of Montana voters, say habitat loss is a serious problem, up from 75% in 2020. More than 86% also view declines in fish and wildlife populations as a serious problem, up from 80% in 2021.
The poll found 65% of Western voters and 69% of those in Montana oppose changes to the Roadless Rule. The Forest Service is still considering a repeal of the 2001 Roadless Rule, which bans the building of roads in areas that tend to be more remote and which often buffer more protected areas such as wilderness. Montana has almost 6.4 million acres of inventoried roadless areas, including in the Crazy Mountains, the Beartooth Mountains and the Gallatin and Bitterroot ranges, according to a U.S. Forest Service summary.
Similarly, 70% oppose streamlining the public process guaranteed by the National Environmental Policy Act, particularly when it comes to fast-tracking oil, gas and mining projects. In Montana, that would apply to the Sheep Creek Project being explored in the West Fork of the Bitterroot River watershed. The Trump administration, his American Energy Dominance program, has added the Sheep Creek Project to the federal Fast-41 list, which would fast-track the rare-earth elements mine by limiting environmental review and reducing permitting requirements.
When it comes to public lands, more than three-quarters of voters said funding cuts to public land agencies are a serious problem. That includes 77% of Republicans and 95% of Democrats. The pollsters took one extra step this year and differentiated between Republican and MAGA voters, and even 75% of MAGA voters said the funding cuts were a serious problem.
The federal layoffs have Westerners concerned, with 91% bothered by having fewer wildland firefighters and staff, while 82-83% are concerned about having fewer park rangers to manage visitors and fewer biologists to monitor fish and wildlife.
When it comes to leasing public land, 75% of Western voters oppose opening more public land to resource extraction and about half are very opposed. Not surprisingly, the same percentage opposes selling public land for resource extraction. In Montana, 83% were opposed, with 63% being very opposed.
“For the most part, three-in-five or more are telling us that selling off national public lands for oil and gas or mining is something they oppose. In fact, it’s very intense in Colorado and Montana. Even Wyoming, which is a very intensive energy economy, is strongly opposed to this concept,” Weigel said.
Montana also led those opposed to selling national public lands for housing, an amendment to the Big Beautiful Bill sponsored unsuccessfully by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, in June. While about three-quarters of Western voters opposed selling land for housing, Montana and Idaho really pushed back, with 87% and 88% of voters, respectively, being opposed.
“These aren’t things that people are feeling shy about. They are willing to offer an opinion and in many cases they are fairly intense in terms of that view,” Weigel said.
Finally, water supplies are becoming more limited ,and 86% of voters consider it to be a serious problem while two-thirds of voters consider it an extremely serious problem. Voters in the Southwest consider it a bigger problem than those in headwater states like Montana where 72% say it’s a serious problem.
When asked what the worst threats to water are, more than 90% of voters cited aging water infrastructure and population growth as the top threats. Notably, they also said data centers posed as much of a threat to water supplies as climate change, mining and overuse by agriculture.
The margin of error for the poll was 2.4% region-wide and up to 4.8% for each state.
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.