That richly complex song of the nightingale is a rare sound in England these days, however not at the Surrey site. Back in 2020, a single bird could be heard at this hidden spot in rural Surrey; lately, they were in multiple locations. “We were listening to them chirping all night, from multiple areas,” notes Meg Cookson, lead ecologist for the Youngwilders. A group of volunteers were residing temporarily at the property, but the birds were so loud, “we were unable to rest all night,” says a project coordinator. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so incredible.” An professional from the local conservation group came to help them capture and tag one of the birds the next morning, the ecologist recalls: “He’d never held a nightingale in his possession before. He was teary.”
Rewilding Progresses at This Location
Nature recovery is by definition a slow business, but at this site at Maple Farm, after merely a short period, the changes are already evident, and audible. The property previously served as a retirement home for horses. Today it’s a showpiece for the youth-led mission: to accelerate ecological restoration, in one of the ecologically impoverished nations in the world, and to engage young people (18-30-year-olds) with a environment they are often denied access to, and a climate crisis they are often unable to prevent. Rising temperatures advances, tree clearing eliminates natural habitats, and one more Cop summit draws to a unsatisfactory conclusion in Brazil – so what person could blame young people for wishing to initiate change themselves?
The organisation was based on the belief that there were landowners ready to allow a group of youthful idiots on to their property
“The younger generation is the best educated ecologically that there’s ever been,” explains the group's founder, one organizer. They are also “the highly invested in the issues, and have played the smallest part to their causing, and, then, are also going to be affected the greatest as a result.”
Transformation of the Property
Now, the group is taking root across the United Kingdom – and the original site planted the seed, in multiple ways. “It’s where we started, and where we created our connections,” explains Molly Easton, as she offers a tour of the 12-hectare property. “This used to be multiple separate areas,” she comments, as we walk through overgrown meadows dotted with shrubs, hemmed by mature woodland. “The key visual difference is that we’ve eliminated all the fencing, over a kilometer of it, to create the impression like one area.” In the summer, they donned hazmat suits and eradicated masses of harmful weeds, an invasive species that can harm the body. “We’ve introduced numerous of bush lines,” notes she. “But the primary focus is we’ve just given it space for a short time. We’ve eliminated a large part of grazing pressure and seen what’s emerged.”
Underbrush and hedgerows are a ideal nightingale home, she explains, but now they’re managing some of the thorny plants to develop a more diversity of habitats and to link up two parts of the site. Young saplings will take much more time to grow, but new growth from the surrounding oaks are already taking root in the meadows; the group have been installing guards to safeguard them from animals.
Animals Reappears in Droves
In addition to the nightingales – animals is coming back in large numbers. Recently they’ve spotted serpents, legless lizards, flyers and bugs, explains another co-director, as he lifts up one of their reptile mats (like a cover over a small hollow in the earth). “You discover creatures and animals hiding under there, but it’s possibly a somewhat chilly for them now.” Natural beehives, constructed from hollowed-out parts of tree trunk and humming with pollinators, are attached to some of the woodland. The lack of grazing horses has given small creatures space to flourish in the long grass. When they came to this summer, says he, “I’d not once observed so countless insects. There were just clouds of them. We were like, ‘What is happening?’”
Beginnings of the Project
The original participants – Bennett, Durant, Molly and additional members – came together as learners, studying or expressing an concern in environmental science. In 2019, the IPCC was indicating that the target of one and a half degrees of global heating was seeming out of reach, Greta Thunberg was spearheading the demonstrations for climate movement, and activist another voice was talking about youth suffering from “environmental stress”. It was also the era of a writer's book, on rewilding, on how they changed the a Sussex location from a struggling farm into a thriving ecosystem. “We were highly motivated by the Knepp story, but what could be the part for young people?” says Easton. “So we made a platform and called loads of environmental organizations and were like, ‘Do you sometimes get your landowners wanting to do something and you lack resources?’”
Durant continues the story: “Our complete initiative was basically based on the idea that there were individuals who were ready to permit a bunch of young idiots on to their property without strict rules, to make major decisions that would change land value
