That richly complex call of the nightingale is a uncommon presence in England these days, but not at the Surrey site. Four years ago, a lone nightingale could be heard at this hidden place in rural Surrey; recently, they were everywhere. “We were hearing them singing all night, from multiple areas,” notes one ecologist, chief environmental expert for the Youngwilders. A band of Youngwilders were camping out at the site, yet the birds were so loud, “we stayed awake all night,” comments Layla Mapemba. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so incredible.” An specialist from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them capture and tag one of the birds the next morning, Cookson states: “He’d never touched a nightingale in his care before. He was teary.”
Rewilding Progresses at This Location
Ecological restoration is by nature a gradual process, but at this site at Maple Farm, after only several seasons, the results are already evident, and noticeable. The land was once a haven for horses. Now it’s a showpiece for the Youngwilders’ purpose: to speed up nature recovery, in one of the biodiversity-poor regions in the planet, and to engage young people (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often shut out of, and a environmental emergency they are often unable to stop. Rising temperatures continues, habitat loss eliminates natural habitats, and yet another climate conference draws to a frustrating outcome in the host country – so what person could blame young people for wishing to initiate change themselves?
Our initiative was founded on the belief that there were individuals ready to let a collection of young amateurs on to their land
“The youth is the most informed environmentally that there’s ever been,” explains the group's co-director, one organizer. They are also “the deeply concerned in the problems, and have contributed the minimal role to their origin, and, then, are also going to suffer the greatest as a result.”
Transformation of the Landscape
Currently, the group is expanding across the United Kingdom – and this location started it all, in multiple ways. “It’s where we started, and the place we built our network,” notes another co-director, as she provides a walkthrough of the 30-acre site. “This used to be divided plots,” she states, as we stroll through overgrown meadows filled with low scrub, hemmed by forest. “The main visible difference is that we’ve taken out all the fencing, a significant length of it, to make it feel like a unified environment.” In the summer, they used hazmat suits and removed significant quantities of invasive plants, an invasive species that can irritate the flesh. “We’ve planted numerous of bush lines,” explains the director. “But the primary focus is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a brief period. We’ve eliminated a significant amount of animal feeding and seen what’s sprung up.”
Bushes and natural fences are a excellent songbird habitat, she explains, however currently they’re managing some of the brambles to create a more range of habitats and to link up two parts of the site. New trees will take much more time to grow, but young trees from the nearby woodland are already taking root in the fields; the group have been setting up protectors to safeguard them from wildlife.
Wildlife Comes Back in Large Numbers
It’s not just the songbirds – fauna is returning in droves. Recently they’ve spotted serpents, creatures, nocturnal mammals and bugs, says another co-director, as he raises one of their monitoring tools (such as a mat over a depression in the soil). “You discover snakes and wildlife sheltering under there, but it’s probably a bit chilly for them now.” Natural homes, constructed from empty sections of tree trunk and active with wild bees, are strapped to some of the woodland. The removal of livestock has provided small creatures room to thrive in the overgrown areas. When they explored this summer, states Bennett, “I’d not ever seen so many insects. There were just swarms of them. We were wondering, ‘What is occurring?’”
Beginnings of the Project
The first founders – Bennett, Durant, Molly and two others – came together as learners, focusing on or having an concern in nature. In 2019, the climate experts was indicating that the safe limit of 1.5C of global heating was appearing out of reach, the activist was spearheading the demonstrations for environmental action, and campaigner a speaker was discussing youth suffering from “climate anxiety”. It was also the time of a writer's publication, on rewilding, on how the authors changed the Knepp Estate from a struggling agricultural business into a successful wildlife haven. “We were deeply influenced by the case study, but what was the function for youth?” questions Molly. “So we developed a website and called many of conservation groups and were like, ‘Do you ever get your landowners wanting to do something and you are short on time?’”
Durant explains the story: “Our complete project was fundamentally founded on the notion that there were landowners who were prepared to let a group of young enthusiasts on to their land without strict rules, to make fairly massive choices that would change land value
