That richly complex song of the nightingale is a rare sound in Britain today, yet it's different at this rural location. Four years ago, a single bird could be detected at this remote spot in rural Surrey; this summer, they were everywhere. “We were listening to them singing all night, from five different territories,” says Meg Cookson, top biologist for the Youngwilders. A team of Youngwilders were staying overnight at the location, but the nightingales were so loud, “we were unable to rest all night,” says a project coordinator. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so incredible.” An expert from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them net and ring one of the birds the next morning, the ecologist remembers: “He’d never held a nightingale in his care before. He was crying.”
Rewilding Progresses at This Location
Ecological restoration is by its very essence a gradual business, but at this site at Maple Farm, after merely a short period, the outcomes are already apparent, and audible. The property used to be a sanctuary for equines. Now it’s a showpiece for the youth-led goal: to accelerate nature recovery, in one of the biodiversity-poor countries in the planet, and to link the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often excluded from, and a global warming issue they are often powerless to stop. Global heating persists, tree clearing eliminates natural habitats, and another international meeting ends with a unsatisfactory end in Brazil – so what person could criticize the younger generation for wishing to take matters into their own hands?
Our initiative was based on the idea that there were individuals prepared to allow a group of young amateurs on to their property
“The youth is the most informed in terms of nature that there’s historically,” states the Youngwilders’ co-director, Jack Durant. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the issues, and have contributed the smallest part to their creation, and, then, are also going to experience consequences most as a consequence.”
Change of the Property
Today, the group is expanding across the Britain – and Maple Farm was the beginning, in all respects. “It’s the initial project, and where we built our community,” notes Molly Easton, as she gives a walkthrough of the expansive land. “This was previously multiple separate areas,” she says, as we move through long grass filled with shrubs, surrounded by forest. “The key noticeable transformation is that we’ve removed all the enclosures, 1.2km of it, to give the sense like one environment.” In the warmer months, they wore hazmat suits and eradicated large amounts of giant hogweed, an non-native plant that can harm the skin. “We’ve planted many of natural barriers,” notes Easton. “But the main thing is we’ve just given it space for a short time. We’ve reduced a significant amount of animal feeding and seen what’s sprung up.”
Bushes and shrub lines are a ideal songbird habitat, she says, although today they’re cutting back some of the thorny plants to establish a greater diversity of environments and to connect different sections of the property. Young saplings will take considerably longer to take root, but young trees from the adjacent trees are already establishing themselves in the meadows; the crew have been installing barriers to shield them from grazing deer.
Nature Reappears in Large Numbers
There's more than the nightingales – wildlife is coming back in abundance. This year they’ve spotted grass snakes, creatures, nocturnal mammals and insects, notes a team member, as he lifts up one of their monitoring tools (like a cover over a small hollow in the ground). “You discover snakes and animals residing under there, but it’s likely a somewhat cold for them now.” Organic nests, built using empty pieces of wood and buzzing with pollinators, are strapped to some of the trees. The lack of animals has given insects room to flourish in the meadows. When they explored this season, comments Bennett, “I’d never observed so many butterflies. There were just masses of them. We were wondering, ‘What is happening?’”
Inception of the Movement
The initial founders – Bennett, Jack, Molly and two others – formed as learners, pursuing or sharing an concern in ecology. In that year, the climate experts was indicating that the acceptable threshold of 1.5C of warming was seeming unachievable, Greta Thunberg was spearheading the school strikes for climate movement, and activist Clover Hogan was talking about youth experiencing “eco-worry”. It was also the time of Isabella Tree’s book, on rewilding, on how she and her husband transformed the Knepp Estate from a struggling dairy farm into a flourishing wildlife haven. “We were highly motivated by the case study, but what could be the part for youth?” questions Easton. “So we developed a online presence and rang up loads of wildlife trusts and were like, ‘Do you occasionally get your property owners wanting to do something and you are short on time?’”
Jack adds the story: “Our whole organisation was essentially founded on the notion that there were people who were prepared to permit a bunch of young amateurs on to their property indiscriminately, to take significant choices that would impact land value
