That richly complex song of the songbird is a rare presence in England today, but not at the Surrey site. Previously, a lone bird could be heard at this secluded location in rural Surrey; lately, they were everywhere. “We were listening to them calling all night, from several zones,” explains Meg Cookson, lead ecologist for the youth rewilding group. A band of volunteers were residing temporarily at the property, yet the nightingales were so boisterous, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” remarks an engagement lead. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so amazing.” An specialist from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them trap and mark one of the songbirds the next morning, the ecologist states: “He’d never handled a nightingale in his possession before. He was teary.”
Rewilding Speeds Up at This Location
Rewilding is by nature a slow process, but in this place at this property, after only a short period, the changes are already evident, and noticeable. The property previously served as a haven for equines. Now it’s a model for the youth-led purpose: to hasten nature recovery, in one of the biodiversity-poor nations in the world, and to link the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a environment they are often denied access to, and a climate crisis they are often powerless to stop. Climate change continues, tree clearing eliminates wildlife homes, and one more Cop summit draws to a unsatisfactory conclusion in abroad – so what person could fault youth for choosing to take matters into their own hands?
The organisation was founded on the notion that there were individuals prepared to permit a collection of young amateurs on to their property
“The youth is the most knowledgeable environmentally that there’s ever been,” states the Youngwilders’ co-director, Jack Durant. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the challenges, and have contributed the least to their origin, and, then, are also going to experience consequences most as a result.”
Change of the Landscape
Today, the group is growing across the UK – and Maple Farm started it all, in every sense. “It’s the initial project, and where we built our community,” notes a founding member, as she offers a overview of the expansive land. “This used to be six different fields,” she states, as we move through overgrown meadows featuring low scrub, hemmed by mature woodland. “The key visual transformation is that we’ve taken out all the barriers, 1.2km of it, to create the impression like one area.” In the summer, they wore hazmat suits and eradicated masses of giant hogweed, an invasive species that can irritate the flesh. “We’ve established loads of natural barriers,” says the director. “But the key action is we’ve just let it breathe for a brief period. We’ve eliminated a large part of grazing pressure and seen what’s come up.”
Bushes and shrub lines are a perfect songbird home, she says, but now they’re managing some of the thorny plants to create a greater diversity of environments and to join different sections of the site. Fresh plantings will take considerably longer to grow, but new growth from the adjacent oaks are already establishing themselves in the open areas; the team have been placing barriers to shield them from grazing deer.
Wildlife Comes Back in Large Numbers
In addition to the nightingales – animals is reappearing in droves. Lately they’ve spotted grass snakes, slowworms, bats and insects, notes Noah Bennett, as he raises one of their monitoring tools (such as a cover over a small hollow in the earth). “You discover reptiles and animals hiding under there, but it’s possibly a bit cold for them now.” Natural beehives, constructed from hollowed-out pieces of wood and active with pollinators, are attached to some of the trees. The removal of animals has provided small creatures opportunity to flourish in the meadows. When they visited this season, states the director, “I’d not ever seen so many lepidoptera. There were just masses of them. We were wondering, ‘What is going on?’”
Beginnings of the Initiative
The first founders – Noah, Durant, Molly and additional members – united as youth, focusing on or expressing an interest in environmental science. In the recent past, the IPCC was predicting that the safe limit of 1.5C of climate change was looking impossible, the activist was spearheading the school strikes for eco-awareness, and campaigner a speaker was discussing young people feeling “environmental stress”. It was also the era of Isabella Tree’s work, about nature recovery, on how the authors changed the a Sussex location from a struggling agricultural business into a successful natural habitat. “We were deeply influenced by the example, but what was the role for young people?” says Molly. “So we made a platform and contacted numerous of wildlife trusts and were like, ‘Do you occasionally get your landowners wanting to make changes and you are short on resources?’”
Jack continues the account: “Our whole organisation was essentially founded on the belief that there were people who were prepared to permit a collection of young idiots on to their land without strict rules, to take major decisions that would impact land value
