Across the Western United States (US), state and local governments, forest managers, practitioners, landowners, and communities face an urgent question: “How do we care for forests today, so they are better prepared for the wildfires of tomorrow?”
The challenge that gets less attention is making sure the forest stewardship projects needed to help reduce wildfire risk and fire severity can actually move forward.
Anyone working in forest management knows that projects can draw visible and vocal opposition. Even when opponents represent a small share of the public, they can dominate meetings, influence political perceptions and funding decisions, and slow or derail work.
The visibility of that opposition can give forest managers and public officials the impression that there simply isn’t a public mandate for active stewardship. New survey results suggest otherwise.
Support for Forest Management Is There, It’s Just Quieter
Polling conducted by Heart+Mind Strategies in July 2026 found that 80% of residents across Western states agree that healthy forests require active stewardship, including thinning overcrowded forests and conducting carefully planned prescribed burns. 82% agree that the US should do more to overcome barriers to forest stewardship while maintaining appropriate environmental safeguards.
Only 4% of residents identify public opposition as the top obstacle to active forest stewardship. At the same time, 55% agree that opposition from a vocal minority can stall or derail projects. This distinction matters because it means that broad public support does not necessarily translate into public participation.
If most people already support active forest management, the question becomes, “How do we bring those people into the conversation?”
That question is at the heart of Forest Trends’ Protect What Matters campaign. Over the past several years, we have tested our assumptions about how people view active forest management. This latest research reinforces something we have seen throughout that work. The challenge, even more than simply winning public favor, is giving the supportive majority reasons and opportunities to speak up.
Start With What People Already Care About
Through Protect What Matters, Forest Trends, in partnership with the USDA Forest Service and local partners across Colorado’s Front Range, has been exploring how values-based communications can bring more people into conversations about forest stewardship. One lesson we’ve learned is that forest health alone is rarely what motivates people to get involved.
Most people don’t experience forests through the language professionals use to manage them. They don’t wake up thinking about fuel loads, treatment acres, forest density, or prescribed fire. Their connection to forests is much more personal.
For some people, it’s identity. A skier, hiker, trail runner, fisher, hunter, or someone who simply lives nearby, may see the forest as part of who they are and why they choose to call Colorado home.
For others, it’s personal enjoyment. It may be less about recreation and sense of self and more about finding happiness through walking a quiet trail away from the fast-moving world, a family camping trip to reconnect, or a favorite view at the end of the day.
It may also be a sense of security. Forests support reliable and safe drinking water, business growth, livelihoods, homes, and the character of entire communities, all of which can be profoundly affected by wildfire.
And for many, their connection to forests is about legacy. The desire to ensure forests are preserved and the next generation will inherit the same opportunities, landscapes, and experiences we enjoy today is a powerful one.
These values can overlap and mean different things to different people. Importantly, we found that these values are often the reason people care about forests in the first place, rather than secondary benefits they associate with healthy forests.
That changes the communications challenge from asking people to care about forest health as an abstract issue or scientific problem to instead asking them to connect forest stewardship to what they already care about and showing them how it helps protect what matters to them.
From Social License to Participation
The Heart+Mind research released this July suggests that active stewardship already has broad social license. What’s missing is a visible expression of that support.
For communicators, forest practitioners, and public officials, the task isn’t only to persuade people that healthy forests require active care. They also need to give people who already agree a reason, the language, and an opportunity to participate.
On August 25, we saw what that can look like.
Community members, forest management practitioners, local leaders, and others gathered at active forest-management sites in Jefferson and Clear Creek counties. The tours were led by local partners who had participated in our Colorado workshops and were now putting that approach into practice. The conversation focused on both how many trees should be removed or how many acres should be treated and what that work protects when wildfire arrives.
The Denver Post reported on a Conifer landowner who had once questioned whether thinning his forest was necessary. Then the 2025 White Hawk Trail Fire reached his area. The previous treatment helped keep the fire manageable, gave firefighters access, and contributed to its containment before any homes burned. The landowner said the work had “saved his home, possibly lives and the forest.” The story also put another benefit in simple terms: “A treated forest can buy homeowners time to get to safety and firefighters time to respond.”
As we see increasingly every fire season in the Northern Hemisphere, the stakes extend well beyond people whose homes sit among the trees. Forest stewardship in the mountains can help protect clean water in communities miles downstream and protect air quality for not only locals, but people hundreds, even thousands of miles away. Here in Colorado, for example, forests around Clear Creek help protect a watershed that provides drinking water to an estimated 500,000 households.
These are the connections that make forest stewardship tangible: a home still standing, more time to evacuate, safer conditions for firefighters, clean water downstream, and forests resilient enough to survive and recover from fire.
Protect What Matters is designed to give communities and organizations a values-based approach to communicating about forest management that they can adapt to their specific contexts, rather than a campaign they simply repeat. A community might use it to engage residents at a public meeting. A forest collaborative could use it to connect to a local project. A business or utility could explain why healthy watersheds matter to its employees and customers. A homeowner could become inspired to prepare their property for wildfire. A recreation group could encourage members to learn more about stewardship of the places they use.
The action will vary, but the starting point doesn’t. What matters to you? How might forests help sustain it? What can you do to help protect what matters?
Turning Support into Participation
The public conversation about forests shouldn’t only be shaped only by the people who object. It should also include the trail runner who spends weekends in wild places, the brewery that relies on clean water, the teacher who takes students outside, the business that depends on Colorado’s forests, the rancher thinking about what will remain for the next generation, and the parent who wants their children to know the same places they do. None of them need to be a forest-policy expert; they already have a stake in the future of these forests
The US West doesn’t lack support for active forest stewardship. The challenge is making that support visible and giving people practical ways to act on it. That is how quiet support becomes active participation.
To learn more about Protect What Matters, our upcoming films, and ways to get involved, visit www.protectwhatmatters.us.
About the Authors
Eszter Bodnar is Director of Communications and Development at Forest Trends. She leads Forest Trends’ partnership with the USDA Forest Service, including partnership development, capacity building, communications workshops, and the Protect What Matters campaign. She lives in Boulder, Colorado.
Jon Rosborough is a DC-based communicator at Leading Authorities, Inc. and a partner on the Protect What Matters campaign. He specializes in creating customized campaigns that transform the way people think about policies, products, and services they might otherwise take for granted.
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