The richly complex call of the songbird is a scarce sound in Britain nowadays, however it's different at this rural location. Back in 2020, a solitary bird could be detected at this remote place in the countryside of Surrey; recently, they were everywhere. “We were listening to them chirping all night, from multiple areas,” says Meg Cookson, lead ecologist for the Youngwilders. A band of volunteers were residing temporarily at the property, but the nightingales were so loud, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” comments a project coordinator. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so amazing.” An expert from the regional nature organization came to help them capture and tag one of the birds the next morning, the ecologist recalls: “He’d never touched a songbird in his hands before. He was emotional.”
Ecological Restoration Accelerates at This Location
Rewilding is by nature a slow business, but in this place at Maple Farm, after only a short period, the outcomes are already visible, and audible. The property previously served as a sanctuary for animals. Today it’s a model for the Youngwilders’ mission: to speed up ecological restoration, in one of the most nature-depleted regions in the world, and to engage youth (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often shut out of, and a climate crisis they are often powerless to prevent. Climate change advances, tree clearing damages wildlife homes, and one more climate conference draws to a unsatisfactory end in the host country – so who could fault youth for wishing to initiate change themselves?
Our project was premised on the belief that there were individuals ready to permit a collection of young enthusiasts on to their estate
“The youth is the most knowledgeable ecologically that there’s ever been,” states the group's founder, Jack Durant. They are also “the deeply concerned in the issues, and have contributed the minimal role to their creation, and, then, are also going to suffer the worst as a consequence.”
Change of the Site
Currently, the organisation is expanding across the UK – and the original site started it all, in multiple ways. “It’s our origin point, and where we created our connections,” notes Molly Easton, as she offers a tour of the 30-acre property. “This was previously multiple separate areas,” she comments, as we move through long grass dotted with low scrub, surrounded by established trees. “The main visual change is that we’ve taken out all the enclosures, 1.2km of it, to give the sense like a unified environment.” In the summer, they used special clothing and removed significant quantities of harmful weeds, an invasive species that can irritate the skin. “We’ve planted many of bush lines,” explains she. “But the key action is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a brief period. We’ve removed a large part of grazing pressure and noticed what’s come up.”
Low scrub and hedgerows are a perfect nightingale home, she explains, although now they’re managing some of the thorny plants to develop a increased variety of ecosystems and to connect different sections of the property. New trees will take considerably longer to establish, but saplings from the surrounding oaks are already taking root in the fields; the team have been installing protectors to shield them from wildlife.
Animals Comes Back in Abundance
It’s not just the nightingales – animals is returning in large numbers. This year they’ve observed reptiles, creatures, flyers and invertebrates, says Noah Bennett, as he lifts up one of their reptile mats (like a mat over a depression in the earth). “You discover creatures and wildlife hiding under there, but it’s likely a bit cold for them now.” Natural beehives, built using empty parts of tree trunk and active with insects, are strapped to some of the woodland. The removal of livestock has given small creatures space to prosper in the overgrown areas. When they came to this summer, comments Bennett, “I’d not ever encountered so many lepidoptera. There were just clouds of them. We were like, ‘What is happening?’”
Origins of the Project
The initial Youngwilders – Bennett, Jack, Easton and two others – formed as students, pursuing or expressing an interest in ecology. In the recent past, the IPCC was forecasting that the acceptable threshold of one and a half degrees of warming was seeming impossible, a prominent figure was leading the youth protests for environmental action, and campaigner another voice was discussing young people suffering from “environmental stress”. It was also the era of the author's work, about nature recovery, on how they changed the Knepp Estate from a struggling farm into a flourishing ecosystem. “We were deeply influenced by the Knepp story, but what could be the function for youth?” questions Molly. “So we made a platform and rang up many of environmental organizations and were like, ‘Do you ever get your property owners seeking to take action and you lack time?’”
Jack adds the story: “Our complete project was fundamentally based on the notion that there were people who were prepared to let a collection of youthful idiots on to their land without strict rules, to decide on significant choices that would impact land value
