That beautifully intricate call of the nightingale is a scarce sound in the UK nowadays, yet it's different at the Surrey site. Back in 2020, a single bird could be heard at this hidden location in the countryside of Surrey; lately, they were in multiple locations. “We were listening to them calling all night, from multiple areas,” notes Meg Cookson, lead ecologist for the youth rewilding group. A band of Youngwilders were residing temporarily at the property, yet the birds were so noisy, “we stayed awake all night,” says an engagement lead. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so amazing.” An specialist from the local conservation group came to help them net and ring one of the songbirds the next morning, Cookson recalls: “He’d never held a songbird in his possession before. He was emotional.”
Habitat Revival Speeds Up at the Surrey Site
Ecological restoration is by its very essence a slow process, but in this place at this property, after only several seasons, the changes are already evident, and audible. The farm previously served as a sanctuary for animals. Today it’s a model for the youth-led mission: to hasten habitat revival, in one of the most nature-depleted regions in the world, and to link youth (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often denied access to, and a climate crisis they are often unable to prevent. Climate change persists, deforestation eliminates wildlife homes, and one more climate conference comes to a disappointing conclusion in the host country – so who could blame young people for choosing to take matters into their own hands?
The organisation was premised on the idea that there were landowners ready to allow a group of young amateurs on to their property
“The youth is the best educated in terms of nature that there’s ever been,” says the group's co-director, a key figure. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the issues, and have played the minimal role to their causing, and, then, are also going to suffer the worst as a consequence.”
Transformation of the Site
Today, the group is taking root across the Britain – and Maple Farm planted the seed, in multiple ways. “It’s our origin point, and the place we built our network,” explains another co-director, as she offers a walkthrough of the expansive land. “This used to be divided plots,” she says, as we walk through long grass filled with low scrub, hemmed by mature woodland. “The primary visible difference is that we’ve removed all the enclosures, 1.2km of it, to make it feel like a single environment.” In the summer, they wore hazmat suits and eradicated significant quantities of harmful weeds, an non-native plant that can burn the skin. “We’ve introduced loads of bush lines,” explains Easton. “But the key action is we’ve just given it space for a little bit. We’ve reduced a large part of livestock impact and noticed what’s sprung up.”
Low scrub and natural fences are a excellent nightingale habitat, she explains, although now they’re trimming some of the wild growth to develop a greater diversity of ecosystems and to link up two parts of the land. New trees will take a while to establish, but new growth from the adjacent oaks are already establishing themselves in the open areas; the crew have been placing barriers to safeguard them from grazing deer.
Nature Comes Back in Droves
There's more than the songbirds – animals is reappearing in large numbers. This year they’ve observed grass snakes, creatures, bats and insects, notes a team member, as he lifts up one of their survey equipment (similar to a mat over a small hollow in the earth). “You discover creatures and wildlife hiding under there, but it’s probably a slightly cool for them now.” Wild nests, made from empty pieces of wood and active with insects, are fixed to some of the plants. The lack of grazing horses has given invertebrates opportunity to prosper in the overgrown areas. When they came to this summer, comments he, “I’d never encountered so numerous insects. There were just swarms of them. We were like, ‘What is happening?’”
Beginnings of the Project
The initial Youngwilders – Bennett, Jack, Molly and additional members – came together as learners, pursuing or having an passion in environmental science. In that year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was indicating that the acceptable threshold of 1.5C of global heating was looking out of reach, a prominent figure was spearheading the demonstrations for climate movement, and advocate Clover Hogan was addressing youth feeling “environmental stress”. It was also the time of the author's publication, about nature recovery, on how she and her husband revitalized the a nearby property from a unsuccessful farm into a thriving natural habitat. “We were super-inspired by the Knepp story, but what could be the function for the next generation?” says Easton. “So we developed a website and contacted numerous of conservation groups and were asking, ‘Do you occasionally get your landowners wanting to take action and you don’t have capacity?’”
Durant explains the narrative: “Our whole initiative was basically founded on the idea that there were landowners who were willing to allow a group of young idiots on to their land without strict rules, to make significant decisions that would impact land value
