Beauty not Sustainability: Support for mowing and rewilding is most influenced by subjective visual appeal not ecological friendliness

Greenspace that is left wilder compared to being mown has a positive impact on biodiversity, habitat protection, and psychological wellbeing. In recent years, Councils across the UK have been declaring an ecological emergency, creating an interest in adopting ecologically conscious land management (ECLM) practices, such as reduced mowing and increased wilding of local county green spaces. However, attempts to reduce mowing are not always met with unequivocal support. It is therefore important to understand what concerns and perceptions most strongly predict support for ECLM practices. The present research employed an online survey design with a sample of 911 participants who live, work, or visit County Durham, measuring support for mowing, support for wilding, mowing concerns, and subjective perceptions of local greenspaces. It was found that concerns around neatness and the environment predicted support for ecologically conscious land management, with higher concerns around neatness reducing support and higher environmental concerns increasing support. Additionally, people’s perceptions around how neat mown green spaces are, along with how environmentally friendly they are, and how socially desirable they are predicted their opinion on whether ecologically conscious land management practices should increase or decrease. Crucially, this paper’s findings indicate that neatness may be the most powerful perception and concern to target when trying to further increase support for ECLM practices. Future research may therefore benefit from investigating how to influence perceptions of neatness. Similarly, policymakers may need to shift their strategy away from the ecological benefit and towards the aesthetic improvements created by wilder land. • Participants supported less mowing and more wild spaces in their County • Support for more wild spaces and less mowing shared mostly the same predictors • Subjective visual appeal moderately predicted mowing preferences • Subjective ecological impact weakly predicted mowing preferences • Visual appeal was participants lowest concern but was the more meaningful predictor