The richly complex song of the songbird is a scarce presence in Britain today, yet not at the Surrey site. Four years ago, a single bird could be detected at this secluded location in the countryside of Surrey; recently, they were in multiple locations. “We were hearing them calling all night, from multiple areas,” explains Meg Cookson, top biologist for the Youngwilders. A group of Youngwilders were camping out at the property, but the birds were so boisterous, “we were unable to rest all night,” remarks a project coordinator. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so incredible.” An expert from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them net and ring one of the nightingales the next morning, Cookson remembers: “He’d never handled a nightingale in his care before. He was emotional.”
Rewilding Progresses at This Location
Rewilding is by its very essence a gradual process, but at this site at Maple Farm, after just a short period, the changes are already visible, and audible. The farm previously served as a retirement home for equines. Currently it’s a model for the youth-led mission: to hasten ecological restoration, in one of the most nature-depleted nations in the world, and to engage youth (18-30-year-olds) with a environment they are often shut out of, and a environmental emergency they are often powerless to stop. Rising temperatures advances, deforestation damages ecosystems, and yet another Cop summit ends with a disappointing conclusion in Brazil – so what person could fault the younger generation for wanting to take matters into their own hands?
The project was premised on the notion that there were people willing to allow a group of young amateurs on to their property
“The youth is the best educated environmentally that there’s previously,” explains the Youngwilders’ leader, a key figure. They are also “the highly invested in the challenges, and have contributed the smallest part to their causing, and, then, are also going to be affected the worst as a consequence.”
Change of the Property
Now, the organisation is taking root across the UK – and Maple Farm planted the seed, in multiple ways. “It’s the initial project, and where we established our community,” notes a founding member, as she offers a tour of the 30-acre property. “This once consisted of multiple separate areas,” she comments, as we walk through long grass filled with bushes, surrounded by forest. “The main visible transformation is that we’ve removed all the fencing, 1.2km of it, to create the impression like a unified area.” In the summer, they donned special clothing and eradicated masses of harmful weeds, an invasive species that can burn the flesh. “We’ve introduced loads of hedgerows,” explains the director. “But the main thing is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a short time. We’ve removed a significant amount of animal feeding and seen what’s sprung up.”
Low scrub and shrub lines are a ideal nightingale habitat, she says, however now they’re cutting back some of the brambles to develop a more diversity of environments and to join two parts of the site. New trees will take considerably longer to establish, but saplings from the surrounding woodland are already taking root in the fields; the group have been setting up guards to safeguard them from wildlife.
Wildlife Returns in Droves
In addition to the nightingales – animals is returning in droves. Recently they’ve spotted reptiles, legless lizards, flyers and bugs, says another co-director, as he raises one of their survey equipment (similar to a mat over a depression in the ground). “You get reptiles and wildlife hiding under there, but it’s possibly a bit chilly for them now.” Natural nests, constructed from carved pieces of wood and buzzing with insects, are attached to some of the trees. The absence of grazing horses has allowed small creatures space to prosper in the long grass. When they visited this season, says Bennett, “I’d not once seen so numerous insects. There were just swarms of them. We were wondering, ‘What is occurring?’”
Beginnings of the Project
The original Youngwilders – Bennett, Durant, Easton and additional members – united as students, pursuing or expressing an interest in nature. In that year, the IPCC was predicting that the target of one and a half degrees of global heating was seeming out of reach, the activist was leading the youth protests for environmental action, and advocate a speaker was addressing young people suffering from “eco-worry”. It was also the era of the author's book, about nature recovery, on how they revitalized the Knepp Estate from a unsuccessful farm into a thriving ecosystem. “We were highly motivated by the Knepp story, but what was the part for youth?” questions Easton. “So we made a platform and called loads of conservation groups and were like, ‘Do you sometimes get your property owners wanting to take action and you don’t have resources?’”
Durant explains the account: “Our whole initiative was basically based on the idea that there were landowners who were willing to let a bunch of youthful idiots on to their estate without strict rules, to take major actions that would impact land value
