Wilding or worrying? Place meaning in a rewilding landscape

Public acceptance of 'place change' is an issue of increasing significance in the UK as post-Brexit policy changes push more landowners to provide ecosystem services. This research looks into the existing conservation project of Knepp Wildland to contribute to understanding the effects of place change on 'place meaning' for the local community. Place meaning looks beyond specific attitudes, to engage in the emotive subjective experience of places for people. The results were collected by means of a qualitative questionnaire distributed through purposive sampling online community groups and finding other contacts through snowballing. Theoretical thematic analysis was conducted using Jacobs and Buijs' (2011) place meaning categories: beauty, functionality, attachment, biodiversity and risk, with two additional categories: emotions-in-place and temporality. The main finding is that in the case of transitioning from an agricultural to a rewilding landscape, place change affects place meaning by triggering renegotiation of place meaning for people themselves and their relationship to the landscape. This can also be understood as causing a change in cultured naturalness, which reflects a community's local identity and way of life, over time. This renegotiation of place meaning included an increasing sense of ecological loss, changing view of visible stewardship, and increasing appreciation of wildlife. Influences on how place change affected place meaning were perceptions on access, wilderness, and belonging. The results also indicate that over time the place meaning derived from Knepp Estate's rewilding landscape is predominantly positive, particularly evident from the emotions-in-place expressed