Wilderness
Stats Misleading

More-wilderness advocates in Vermont have consistently used a set of sound bites to bolster their arguments for adding more wilderness to the wilderness acres we already have in the Green Mountain National Forest. One of them is surfacing more shrilly these days.

It happens also to be one of the most misleading. I am referring to phrases such as "the majority of Vermonters," "overwhelming public opinion," "the will of the people," etc.

These phrases are based squarely on the Vermont Wilderness Poll, an opinion poll carried out by UVM back in 2002, before the wilderness issue exploded into a bitter firestorm that is splitting communities and poisoning relationships.

The results of the poll are always presented as an accomplished fact. The findings are supposedly objective, so no one can (read: is allowed to) disagree with them. Here are some facts about the famous (or infamous) UVM Wilderness Poll.

So I will not be misquoted, allow me to quote from the Executive Summary: "The 2002 Vt. Wilderness Poll was conducted by the Center for Rural Studies at the University of Vermont and sponsored by The Wilderness Society, Boston. The purpose of this survey was to obtain Vermonters' opinions on issues relevant to the use of the State's public lands, particularly the issue of federal wilderness designation in the Green Mountain National Forest. Design of the questionnaire was overseen by the Vermont Wilderness Association with consultation from the Center for Rural Studies."

The more-wilderness activists regularly trot out the factoid that "70% of Vermonters" favor more wilderness. This is the classic "bandwagon" strategy, where we are supposed to be overwhelmed by the majority opinion and base ours on what everyone else seems to believe. Yet by now the educated public understands very well how polls work and the ways they can be used to bolster a private agenda. It's helpful to look at the actual numbers.

The poll began with 1,662 "randomly selected" registered voters, split into two groups: the general public, and the towns "in, adjacent to, and/or impacted by the Green Mountain National Forest." After wrong numbers, hang-ups, and households otherwise disqualified, actual responses totaled 584. Question 2 states, "More wilderness areas should be established on the Green Mountain National Forest," 72.7% of the public group agreed, and 68.8% of the GMNF group agreed. In actual numbers, 330 in the larger group agreed, and 77 in the smaller group agreed.

Vermont's population as of 2000 was around 608,800 souls. Seventy percent of that number comes to 426,160. A far cry from the 407 actual responses now being trumped up as "the vast majority of Vermonters!"

In terms of geographical location, by far the largest number of respondents (28.5%) lived in Chittenden County at the time of the poll. This figure is larger than Windsor, Rutland, and Addison county respondents put together. And while the authors of the poll admitted that Chittenden County was "over-sampled," they still felt that the poll was "representative of Vermont households." No attempt was made to adjust the results—or the sample itself—to reflect this gross disparity, nor to reflect the much greater economic and cultural stake of towns who would have more wilderness imposed upon them. Only the raw numbers are being used to bolster the more-wilderness position.

In effect, the responses of this group inflate the pro-wilderness results of the poll. Chittenden County's major newspaper regularly saturates its circulation area with arguments for more wilderness. As for the survey questions, were they skewed? Read the poll and decide for yourself. It's online at http://crs.uvm.edu/wildpoll. But there is a certain underhanded tone to some of the items.

Question 4 asks if "some existing wilderness areas" should be reopened for logging." Whoops! Designated wilderness in the National Forest has been closed to logging since the beginning. There is no pressure to log those sections. It's a non-issue. But just by mentioning it, the question sows seeds of doubt. Maybe we should have more wilderness to protect the wilderness we already have.

We almost laugh whenever we hear more-wilderness activists accuse "private interests of a small minority" of pre-empting "the long-term, public interests of a large majority of Vermont voters."

The U.S. Forest Service did what it was supposed to do, through long weeks of public meetings held on snowy nights in town halls and schools, with maps, charts, PowerPoint presentations, Q&A sessions. If there was ever a bottom-up process, it was this.

I attended the meetings in Hancock and Rochester, and no one ever identified him- or herself as a member of the legion of private non-profit wilderness watchdog groups. Instead, they sniped from the sidelines, as they are doing now.

Nine towns with a lot at stake, and the state of Vermont, have gone on record opposing the expansion of wilderness as unnecessary and in fact injurious. This is the true "will of the people." Letter writers have repeatedly confronted the misrepresentations and underhanded tactics of the more-wilderness camp. Yet more-wilderness activists sound as if they expect their opinion poll to have the same clout as the referendums used in some Western states to force administrative changes that cater to special interests. That just isn't the Vermont way.

Julia Purdy

Rochester