…A recently-released report by Bozeman-based Headwaters Economics looks at how public lands create a competitive economic advantage in the West. The study found that, from 1970 to 2010, job growth in the West was double what it was in the rest of the country. Most of that employment was in service industries including high tech, insurance, finance, health care, real estate and insurance, “which created 19.3 million net new jobs, many of them high-paying.” Non-metropolitan counties whose land base was more than 30 percent federally-protected land saw a 345 percent rise in employment during that same period. The report also shows that, in 2010, per capita income in Western, rural countries with 100,000 acres of protected public lands is $4,360 higher on average than those countries with no protected public lands.…