The manically melodic call of the songbird is a rare presence in the UK nowadays, yet not at the Surrey site. Previously, a solitary bird could be detected at this remote location in rural Surrey; recently, they were in multiple locations. “We were listening to them chirping all night, from several zones,” says Meg Cookson, lead ecologist for the Youngwilders. A band of Youngwilders were staying overnight at the property, however the nightingales 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 net and ring one of the birds the next morning, she recalls: “He’d never held a nightingale in his possession before. He was emotional.”
Rewilding Accelerates at This Location
Nature recovery is by nature a slow endeavor, but here at Maple Farm, after just a short period, the changes are already visible, and noticeable. The farm was once a sanctuary for horses. Currently it’s a model for the Youngwilders’ mission: to speed up nature recovery, in one of the ecologically impoverished countries in the globe, and to engage the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often excluded from, and a climate crisis they are often unable to stop. Global heating persists, deforestation destroys natural habitats, and yet another climate conference comes to a unsatisfactory conclusion in the host country – so what person could criticize youth for wishing to take matters into their own hands?
The organisation was premised on the idea that there were landowners prepared to permit a bunch of youthful amateurs on to their property
“The younger generation is the best educated environmentally that there’s previously,” says the group's leader, Jack Durant. They are also “the deeply concerned in the problems, and have added the smallest part to their origin, and, then, are also going to experience consequences most as a consequence.”
Transformation of the Property
Today, the initiative is expanding across the UK – and this location was the beginning, in every sense. “It’s the initial project, and the place we established our community,” notes a founding member, as she gives a tour of the 12-hectare site. “This was previously divided plots,” she comments, as we stroll through long grass filled with shrubs, hemmed by established trees. “The main visual change is that we’ve eliminated all the fencing, over a kilometer of it, to create the impression like a single area.” In the warmer months, they used hazmat suits and eradicated masses of invasive plants, an invasive species that can burn the body. “We’ve planted loads of hedgerows,” notes Easton. “But the key action is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a brief period. We’ve reduced a significant amount of grazing pressure and noticed what’s come up.”
Underbrush and natural fences are a excellent nightingale habitat, she explains, but today they’re trimming some of the thorny plants to establish a more variety of habitats and to link up separate areas of the site. Young saplings will take considerably longer to grow, but saplings from the adjacent trees are already growing in the open areas; the team have been installing barriers to shield them from animals.
Nature Comes Back in Abundance
It’s not just the songbirds – wildlife is coming back in droves. Recently they’ve seen serpents, slowworms, flyers and insects, notes a team member, as he lifts up one of their monitoring tools (like a cover over a small hollow in the soil). “You discover snakes and animals residing under there, but it’s possibly a bit cool for them now.” Organic beehives, built using empty sections of wood and active with wild bees, are attached to some of the trees. The absence of animals has provided small creatures space to prosper in the meadows. When they explored this season, states the director, “I’d never seen so many butterflies. There were just swarms of them. We were wondering, ‘What is happening?’”
Inception of the Movement
The original participants – Bennett, Durant, Easton and additional members – united as youth, pursuing or expressing an passion in ecology. In 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was indicating that the safe limit of 1.5C of global heating was looking out of reach, Greta Thunberg was guiding the youth protests for environmental action, and advocate another voice was discussing the generation feeling “environmental stress”. It was also the time of the author's book, about nature recovery, on how she and her husband transformed the Knepp Estate from a struggling dairy farm into a thriving ecosystem. “We were deeply influenced by the case study, but what was the role for youth?” asks Easton. “So we made a online presence and called many of environmental organizations and were asking, ‘Do you occasionally get your estate holders wishing to do something and you don’t have capacity?’”
Jack continues the account: “Our complete organisation was fundamentally premised on the notion that there were people who were prepared to permit a collection of young amateurs on to their property freely, to make significant decisions that would change land value
