What does it mean to be wild? Attitudes to rewilding as an adaptation approach to climate change in Sussex and the West Midlands, UK

Rewilding, allowing or facilitating natural process-led ecosystem recovery, is a potentially transformative approach to reforming land management, particularly in the context of severe biodiversity declines. It is also measured by perceived trade-offs given the politicization of land, particularly in the UK. Given the proportion of private land ownership, it is critical to understand landholders’ attitudes to rewilding as an adaptation approach to climate change, what it means to be “wild,” and opportunities and barriers for integrated climate change and biodiversity strategy in the context of the new Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS), established by the 2020 Agriculture Act and introduced in 2021. This research used semi-structured interviews (n = 11) with landholders, community groups, non-government organizations and regional government representatives at sites across Sussex and in Shropshire in the West Midlands, UK, to understand perceptions of the state of nature, relative prioritization of climate change and biodiversity loss, its determination of land management approach, perceived gaps in the ELMS subsidies, and implications for rewilding praxis. Key social conflicts include concentrated land ownership, population density, cultural heritage, and the need for landscapes to meet multiple uses and values. Opportunities to address barriers to adaptation for landholders through the existing ELMS include increasing scope and ambition, through financial support and practical guidance, to support the long-term changes needed for sustainable land management that satisfies multiple land uses and values. Highly proscribed land access and privatization are found to be critical barriers informing wider popular disconnect with, and deprioritization of, nature. This research emphasizes the importance of expanding public land access rights to transform fundamental relationships with nature and to enable the UK to meet the interdependent challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss.