The majority of adults surveyed believe programs to help Americans enjoy nature and wildlife are underfunded. Most support increasing the number of these programs. A majority of adults support using a variety of funding sources to pay for nature and wildlife activities. Furthermore, most adults, when faced with trade-offs such as building on land even if it results in fewer places for wildlife to live, opt to protect habitat and wildlife. Children and most adults both disagree that humans should be dominant over the natural world.

Adults who were highly satisfied with the fundamental human services where they live, such as schools and water quality, were highly likely to support increasing nature and wildlife programs. So too were adults who were highly dissatisfied with these aspects of their local community. This finding indicates one of the ways Americans link what happens in their community with what happens in nature. In addition, we believe a significant expansion of funding for nature- and outdoors-related programs, including wildlife conservation, will be achieved when various sectors effectively link nature, wildlife, and the outdoors to the public’s self-interest in health, productivity, and quality of life—which this research suggests is already intuitive to the vast majority of Americans.