By a solid margin, Utahns favor boosting state appropriations for the LeRay McAllister Critical Land Conservation Fund.

The fund, which received nearly $1.5 million in the last legislative session, is an incentive project to encourage communities and landowners to work together to conserve critical land and watersheds. Its grants go to preserve family farms, wildlife habitat and stretches of streams.

During a meeting of the Nature Conservancy in July, Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. called for the Legislature to increase appropriations for the fund in the state's 2008 budget. Huntsman said protecting land and water resources is "so important to our economic future."

The value of the landscape goes deeper, he added. "These natural lands and waters are more than pretty places." From his perspective, they are "bedrock" to the state's identity, he said.

Most Utahns contacted in a Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll this month agreed with the governor about increasing the McAllister budget.

The poll of 420 Utahns, conducted by Dan Jones & Associates from Aug. 15 to 17, found that 52 percent favor spending more money for land conservation, while 41 percent were opposed. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percent.

Among those surveyed, 27 percent strongly favored giving the fund more money while 25 percent somewhat favored. Those somewhat opposed were 19 percent of the sample, and people who are strongly opposed made up 22 percent. Six percent did not know.

Men were more likely to support spending more funds for conservation, with 57 percent liking the idea and 38 percent against. Of the women surveyed, 48 percent favored the idea and 44 percent opposed it.

Not surprisingly, John Bennett, LeRay McAllister Fund project manager, is among those who would like to see more money in the conservation pot.

"There are a number of projects that we think are very good projects that we won't be able to fund because we don't have the money to do that," he said. "Obviously, we'd like to see more money in the fund so we can meet that demand."

Applications this year requested $8.8 million, around six times the amount available. Bennett gave these examples of projects helped by the fund:

• Along the Dimple Dell Parkway in Sandy, the fund helped pay for a project to take out invasive plant species like Russian olives and tamarisk, replacing them with native Utah plants including cottonwoods and willows. Also, he said, heavy machinery was used to "put meanders back into the stream" that had been artificially straightened in the past.

• At the Brooke Ranch, located in Paradise, Cache County, the McAllister fund provided $250,000 for a conservation easement. This was matched by $1 million in federal funding; $250,000 in a private grant and $500,000 in a landowner donation.

The ranch raises grain and hay and other crops. A farmer wanted to continue farming, although developers were interested in the land. The conservation easement made sure that the land can't be developed, "so he can continue to farm and do agricultural related activities on the farm, but he can never sell the land for development," Bennett said.

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