That richly complex melody of the nightingale is a rare presence in Britain nowadays, yet not at this rural location. Four years ago, a solitary nightingale could be noticed at this remote 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 Youngwilders. A band of volunteers were camping out at the location, but the birds were so loud, “we stayed awake all night,” comments a project coordinator. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so incredible.” An expert from the regional nature organization came to help them capture and tag one of the birds the next morning, the ecologist remembers: “He’d never held a nightingale in his possession before. He was teary.”
Habitat Revival Accelerates at the Surrey Site
Rewilding is by definition a gradual process, but at this site at Maple Farm, after merely several seasons, the results are already visible, and audible. The land previously served as a retirement home for animals. Currently it’s a model for the youth-led goal: to speed up habitat revival, in one of the biodiversity-poor countries in the planet, and to engage young people (18-30-year-olds) with a environment they are often denied access to, and a climate crisis they are often powerless to stop. Rising temperatures advances, habitat loss eliminates ecosystems, and one more Cop summit comes to a frustrating outcome in the host country – so who could criticize young people for wanting to initiate change themselves?
Our project was founded on the belief that there were people willing to let a group of young idiots on to their property
“The youth is the most informed environmentally that there’s ever been,” says the group's founder, a key figure. They are also “the deeply concerned in the issues, and have added the minimal role to their causing, and, then, are also going to experience consequences the greatest as a result.”
Transformation of the Landscape
Currently, the group is growing across the United Kingdom – and this location was the beginning, in every sense. “It’s our origin point, and where we established our network,” says Molly Easton, as she gives a overview of the 30-acre land. “This once consisted of multiple separate areas,” she comments, as we stroll through overgrown meadows featuring bushes, surrounded by established trees. “The key noticeable change is that we’ve eliminated all the barriers, a significant length of it, to give the sense like a single environment.” In the warmer months, they used hazmat suits and cleared large amounts of giant hogweed, an non-native plant that can irritate the body. “We’ve established loads of natural barriers,” notes Easton. “But the key action is we’ve just given it space for a brief period. We’ve removed a lot of livestock impact and noticed what’s emerged.”
Underbrush and shrub lines are a perfect songbird environment, she comments, but currently they’re managing some of the thorny plants to establish a greater diversity of ecosystems and to connect different sections of the property. Young saplings will take a while to take root, but saplings from the adjacent woodland are already growing in the meadows; the crew have been setting up guards to safeguard them from wildlife.
Animals Returns in Abundance
It’s not just the songbirds – fauna is reappearing in large numbers. Lately they’ve observed serpents, slowworms, flyers and insects, explains Noah Bennett, as he raises one of their reptile mats (similar to a mat over a depression in the ground). “You get creatures and things hiding under there, but it’s probably a bit cool for them now.” Organic nests, built using empty sections of tree trunk and buzzing with wild bees, are fixed to some of the woodland. The removal of livestock has provided small creatures space to thrive in the meadows. When they came to this summer, says Bennett, “I’d never encountered so many butterflies. There were just clouds of them. We were saying, ‘What is occurring?’”
Inception of the Movement
The original participants – Noah, Durant, Easton and two others – formed as learners, pursuing or expressing an interest in environmental science. In that year, the climate experts was predicting that the target of one and a half degrees of warming was looking unachievable, Greta Thunberg was leading the demonstrations for environmental action, and campaigner another voice was talking about youth suffering from “environmental stress”. It was also the time of Isabella Tree’s publication, on rewilding, on how they transformed the Knepp Estate from a failing dairy farm into a successful natural habitat. “We were deeply influenced by the example, but what could be the function for the next generation?” questions Molly. “So we developed a platform and rang up loads of environmental organizations and were asking, ‘Do you ever get your estate holders wishing to do something and you lack capacity?’”
Durant adds the account: “Our entire initiative was fundamentally founded on the idea that there were landowners who were prepared to allow a group of youthful enthusiasts on to their estate indiscriminately, to take major actions that would impact land value
