Environmental learning and the social construction of an exurban landscape in Fremont County, Colorado

►The amenity residents sampled in this study participate regularly in social learning about the environment through a variety of interpersonal and organizational behaviors. ►These amenity residents are responding collectively to environmental risks and opportunities associated with wildfire, noxious weeds and invasive grass species, prospective uranium mining, and restoration of cultural-landscape features. ►The practices of environmental learning documented in this study concern how private properties and assets will be managed relative to the social construction of the environment as an amenity for personal consumption. ►Conservation and management prospects in this and other rural areas in the postindustrial world can be enhanced by understanding the microsociology of exurban geographies.