Quality of Life on the Colorado Plateau: A Report to Camera-Survey Collaborators in Southeast Utah

摘要

One of the most difficult issues for planners and natural resource managers is trying to determine how their decisions will affect local residents, especially the residents lifestyles. A frequent admonition to federal, state, and local land and resource managers is, We know things are changing, but don't ruin our quality of life. To provide some tangible evidence of what local residents mean by this expression, we administered a Resident-Employed Photography survey. This involved giving 12-exposure, single-use cameras to residents of Carbon, Emery, Grand, San Juan, and Wayne counties in Southeast Utah, and asking them to show us what places and features of their communities and surrounding landscapes were essential to their quality of life. That exercise was followed up with a short mail-back questionnaire.