Your initial argument was that farmers should want the development, "do you really like that stupid cow?" -- and my attempted point was that yes, the farmers do

Your initial argument was that farmers should want the development, "do you really like that stupid cow?" -- and my attempted point was that yes, the farmers do in fact like that stupid cow. All the benefits you propose of the increased tourism and 5 million dollars pale in many farmers' minds to the downside of having more tourists, who clog up the roads, complain about their farming practices, drive up land prices, and want to build developments. Farming is a lifestyle well suited to loners and cow farming in particular is well suited to very remote areas; thus added tourism, making it a less remote area, decreases the local farmer's reason for existing there. To reply to your new point, an important part of democracy is the right of self-determination, and people get very upset when faraway majorities impose their wills despite the local majority disagreeing. Consider Catalonia, or other independence movements throughout history, or any number of instances of imperialism throughout history: should a national majority be able to force a local majority to give up their way of life / national independence / raison d'etre? That's how local residents who've been there for 20, 30, 60 years feel about outsiders coming in to diversify the economy or introduce wolves to eat their lambs -- why are the outsiders coming in and imposing their negatives on their apparently perfectly good way of life?