Landholder perceptions and attitudes towards the rewilding of private land: an analysis from Surrey, UK

Figures & data

Table 1. Four categories of rewilding proponents in the UK, as found and defined by Thomas (2022).

Category	Description
Armchair rewilders	Far-off advocates who will not be impacted by the practical consequences of rewilding.
Pioneer farmers	Landholders who transition to more sustainable food production and kickstart cultural change.
Policy entrepreneurs	Members of lobbying organisations who identify and utilise existing policy windows to push their proposals on rewilding.
Guerrilla rewilders	People who participate in direct, often covert and illegal, action in an attempt to rewild land.

Figure 1. Map of the county of Surrey.

Figure 2. Stakeholder map representing relevant stakeholders based on their levels of interest and influence about rewilding in Surrey.

Table 2. Summary of the characteristics of the landholder participants.

Participant code	Land ownership	Land management	Agricultural use	Size of holding (acres)
L1	Does not own land	Manages land	Does not practice agriculture on land	9885
L2	Owns land	Manages land	Does not practice agriculture on land	48
L3	Owns land	Manages land	Practices some form of agriculture	90
L4	Owns land	Manages land	Practices some form of agriculture	1000
L5	Owns land	Manages land	Does not practice agriculture on land	8
L6	Owns land	Manages land	Practices some form of agriculture	500
L7	Owns land	Manages land	Practices some form of agriculture	30
L8	Does not own land	Manages land	Does not practice agriculture on land	580

Figure 3. Overview of the thematic analysis process, based on Braun and Clarke’s methodology (2006).

Figure 4. The arising thematic map of landholder perceptions of rewilding in Surrey, UK.

Table 3. The number of landholders interviewed who expressed specific perspectives on agricultural reduction through rewilding.

Number of landholders	Perspectives relating to rewilding as replacing agriculture.
5	Rewilding happens as an alternative to agricultural production, removing the potential for land to produce food or income
2	Rewilding is different to sustainable or regenerative agriculture, assuming that agriculture cannot be ecologically improved through rewilding
2	Importance of finding a balance between food security and environmental goals, implying that they are mutually exclusive

Figure 5. The different forms of rewilding within the existing literature (principally the X-axis) are given a further dimensionality emerging from Surrey landholder views which add the relevance of impacts affecting existing human activities.

Figure 6. Thematic map of the perceived advantages of rewilding expressed by landholders in Surrey, UK.

Figure 7. Thematic map of the perceived barriers to rewilding expressed by landholders in Surrey, UK.

Table 4. The number of landholders interviewed who expressed perspectives relating to the ecological barriers of rewilding.

Number of landholders	Perspectives relating to the ecological barriers of rewilding
3	Reintroducing large animals, including deer, beavers, bison, and wolves, can have a large, negative impact on ecosystems, exerting pressure on the land or threatening other species.
2	It is important to protect species that have evolved with historical land management – whether that is farmland or heathland – and that would be threatened by natural succession.
2	Low-intervention rewilding can threaten biodiversity, causing natural succession and spreading invasive species, specifically ragwort.

Figure 8. Thematic map of the perceived enabling factors of rewilding expressed by landholders in Surrey, UK.

Figure 9. Thematic overlaps of landholder views on the advantages, barriers, and enabling factors of public access and rewilding in Surrey, UK. Colours represent themes, text describes sub-themes, numbers indicate how many landholders expressed each view.

Thomas V. 2022. Actors and actions in the discourse, policy and practice of english rewilding. Environ Sci Policy. 132:83–90. doi: 10.1016/j.envsci.2022.02.010.

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Braun V, Clarke V. 2006. Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qual Res Psychol. 3(2): 77–19. doi: 10.1191/1478088706qp063oa.

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Data availability statement

The participants of this study did not give written consent for their data to be shared publicly, so due to the nature of the research supporting data is not available.