The beautifully intricate call of the songbird is a rare presence in England these days, yet it's different at this rural location. Four years ago, a lone nightingale could be heard at this secluded spot in the countryside of Surrey; this summer, they were all around. “We were listening to them calling all night, from several zones,” notes Meg Cookson, top biologist for the Youngwilders. A group of Youngwilders were residing temporarily at the site, yet the birds were so boisterous, “we were unable to rest all night,” comments a project coordinator. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so cool.” An specialist from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them net and ring one of the songbirds the next morning, the ecologist recalls: “He’d never held a nightingale in his possession before. He was crying.”
Habitat Revival Progresses at the Surrey Site
Rewilding is by its very essence a lengthy business, but in this place at Maple Farm, after only several seasons, the outcomes are already visible, and hearable. The farm was once a retirement home for animals. Now it’s a example for the youth-led goal: to accelerate nature recovery, in one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, and to link young people (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often excluded from, and a global warming issue they are often ineffectual to stop. Rising temperatures continues, tree clearing eliminates ecosystems, and yet another Cop summit draws to a disappointing end in Brazil – so who could fault youth for wanting to act independently?
The project was founded on the notion that there were landowners ready to allow a group of young amateurs on to their estate
“The newer cohort is the most knowledgeable in terms of nature that there’s ever been,” states the group's leader, Jack Durant. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the issues, and have played the minimal role to their creation, and, then, are also going to be affected most as a result.”
Revitalization of the Property
Today, the initiative is taking root across the United Kingdom – and this location planted the seed, in multiple ways. “It’s our origin point, and where we built our network,” says another co-director, as she offers a tour of the 30-acre site. “This was previously divided plots,” she comments, as we move through overgrown meadows featuring low scrub, surrounded by established trees. “The primary visual change is that we’ve removed all the enclosures, over a kilometer of it, to make it feel like one landscape.” In the recent season, they wore hazmat suits and cleared large amounts of giant hogweed, an non-native plant that can harm the skin. “We’ve planted many of natural barriers,” explains the director. “But the primary focus is we’ve just given it space for a little bit. We’ve removed a significant amount of livestock impact and seen what’s sprung up.”
Underbrush and shrub lines are a ideal songbird habitat, she explains, although today they’re cutting back some of the thorny plants to develop a more diversity of environments and to link up different sections of the property. New trees will take a while to grow, but young trees from the surrounding oaks are already taking root in the meadows; the group have been placing barriers to protect them from animals.
Wildlife Comes Back in Droves
There's more than the songbirds – wildlife is returning in abundance. Recently they’ve observed grass snakes, legless lizards, flyers and insects, notes Noah Bennett, as he uncovers one of their reptile mats (similar to a cover over a small hollow in the soil). “You discover creatures and wildlife hiding under there, but it’s probably a somewhat cool for them now.” Organic nests, constructed from carved sections of tree trunk and buzzing with wild bees, are attached to some of the trees. The removal of livestock has allowed insects space to flourish in the meadows. When they explored this time, says Bennett, “I’d not ever observed so numerous butterflies. There were just swarms of them. We were wondering, ‘What is occurring?’”
Beginnings of the Movement
The initial participants – Bennett, Durant, Easton and two others – came together as students, studying or having an passion in ecology. In that year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was predicting that the target of 1.5C of climate change was appearing impossible, the activist was spearheading the school strikes for climate movement, and activist a speaker was talking about young people suffering from “environmental stress”. It was also the time of a writer's work, on rewilding, on how they transformed the Knepp Estate from a struggling dairy farm into a flourishing wildlife haven. “We were deeply influenced by the case study, but what was the role for youth?” asks Easton. “So we made a online presence and called loads of wildlife trusts and were asking, ‘Do you ever get your estate holders seeking to take action and you lack resources?’”
Durant adds the narrative: “Our complete organisation was basically premised on the notion that there were individuals who were ready to permit a collection of youthful enthusiasts on to their estate without strict rules, to make fairly massive actions that would impact land value
