🔗 Share this article

That manically melodic call of the songbird is a uncommon sound in Britain nowadays, however it's different at the Surrey site. Four years ago, a solitary nightingale could be detected at this remote location in rural Surrey; recently, they were all around. “We were listening to them singing all night, from five different territories,” says a lead scientist, lead ecologist for the youth rewilding group. A band of volunteers were residing temporarily at the site, yet the birds were so noisy, “we stayed awake all night,” remarks an engagement lead. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so incredible.” An expert from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them capture and tag one of the nightingales the next morning, she states: “He’d never handled a songbird in his hands before. He was teary.”

Habitat Revival Speeds Up at the Surrey Site

Rewilding is by nature a slow endeavor, but here at this property, after only several seasons, the outcomes are already visible, and audible. The farm used to be a retirement home for horses. Today it’s a example for the youth-led goal: to speed up habitat revival, in one of the most nature-depleted countries in the globe, and to link young people (18-30-year-olds) with a environment they are often excluded from, and a climate crisis they are often unable to stop. Climate change persists, habitat loss eliminates ecosystems, and another Cop summit ends with a disappointing conclusion in the host country – so what person could fault youth for choosing to initiate change themselves?

Our organisation was premised on the belief that there were landowners willing to let a group of youthful amateurs on to their land

“The younger generation is the most knowledgeable in terms of nature that there’s ever been,” says the group's co-director, a key figure. They are also “the deeply concerned in the challenges, and have added the minimal role to their causing, and, then, are also going to experience consequences most as a outcome.”

Revitalization of the Landscape

Currently, the organisation is expanding across the United Kingdom – and Maple Farm planted the seed, in multiple ways. “It’s the initial project, and the place we created our community,” explains another co-director, as she provides a tour of the 12-hectare site. “This was previously multiple separate areas,” she comments, as we walk through tall vegetation dotted with bushes, surrounded by established trees. “The main noticeable change is that we’ve taken out all the fencing, over a kilometer of it, to create the impression like a single area.” In the recent season, they used protective gear and cleared large amounts of invasive plants, an non-native plant that can harm the skin. “We’ve planted numerous of hedgerows,” explains she. “But the primary focus is we’ve just given it space for a little bit. We’ve removed a large part of livestock impact and observed what’s sprung up.”

Underbrush and shrub lines are a excellent nightingale home, she says, but today they’re cutting back some of the wild growth to develop a more variety of habitats and to link up different sections of the site. Fresh plantings will take much more time to establish, but saplings from the surrounding trees are already establishing themselves in the fields; the crew have been installing barriers to shield them from grazing deer.

Animals Reappears in Droves

There's more than the nightingales – wildlife is coming back in large numbers. Recently they’ve seen serpents, creatures, nocturnal mammals and bugs, says a team member, as he raises one of their reptile mats (similar to a cover over a depression in the earth). “You find reptiles and wildlife hiding under there, but it’s possibly a slightly cold for them now.” Natural beehives, made from empty sections of tree trunk and buzzing with pollinators, are strapped to some of the woodland. The removal of grazing horses has provided small creatures space to thrive in the overgrown areas. When they came to this season, comments the director, “I’d not once seen so many butterflies. There were just masses of them. We were wondering, ‘What is going on?’”

Origins of the Movement

The original Youngwilders – Bennett, Durant, Easton and additional members – came together as learners, pursuing or having an interest in ecology. In the recent past, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was predicting that the safe limit of one and a half degrees of warming was seeming unachievable, Greta Thunberg was spearheading the demonstrations for eco-awareness, and campaigner Clover Hogan was talking about the generation experiencing “environmental stress”. It was also the era of a writer's book, on rewilding, on how she and her husband transformed the a nearby property from a unsuccessful dairy farm into a successful natural habitat. “We were super-inspired by the Knepp story, but what could be the role for youth?” asks Molly. “So we developed a website and called many of wildlife trusts and were asking, ‘Do you occasionally get your estate holders wishing to make changes and you don’t have resources?’”

Jack adds the narrative: “Our whole project was essentially based on the idea that there were landowners who were ready to allow a group of young enthusiasts on to their property indiscriminately, to take major actions that would change land value