The beautifully intricate melody of the nightingale is a scarce occurrence in Britain nowadays, yet it's different at the Surrey site. Previously, a lone nightingale could be heard at this secluded place in rural Surrey; this summer, they were in multiple locations. “We were hearing them chirping all night, from several zones,” says a lead scientist, lead ecologist for the youth rewilding group. A band of volunteers were residing temporarily at the site, but the birds were so boisterous, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” says a project coordinator. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so cool.” An expert from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them capture and tag one of the songbirds the next morning, Cookson remembers: “He’d never handled a nightingale in his possession before. He was crying.”
Rewilding Progresses at the Surrey Site
Rewilding is by its very essence a slow process, but at this site at this property, after just a short period, the outcomes are already evident, and hearable. The farm used to be a sanctuary for animals. Today it’s a showpiece for the Youngwilders’ goal: to hasten habitat revival, in one of the biodiversity-poor nations in the planet, and to link the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a environment they are often denied access to, and a global warming issue they are often ineffectual to prevent. Climate change advances, tree clearing destroys wildlife homes, and another international meeting draws to a unsatisfactory end in the host country – so who could fault the younger generation for wanting to act independently?
Our project was based on the notion that there were individuals ready to permit a collection of youthful enthusiasts on to their land
“The younger generation is the most informed ecologically that there’s previously,” explains the Youngwilders’ co-director, Jack Durant. They are also “the deeply concerned in the problems, and have played the minimal role to their creation, and, then, are also going to be affected the greatest as a result.”
Change of the Landscape
Now, the initiative is growing across the Britain – and Maple Farm started it all, in multiple ways. “It’s the initial project, and where we established our community,” notes a founding member, as she provides a tour of the 30-acre property. “This was previously multiple separate areas,” she comments, as we stroll through tall vegetation featuring shrubs, hemmed by forest. “The main visible change is that we’ve removed all the enclosures, over a kilometer of it, to give the sense like a unified environment.” In the summer, they wore hazmat suits and removed large amounts of invasive plants, an non-native plant that can irritate the flesh. “We’ve established many of bush lines,” says Easton. “But the main thing is we’ve just let it breathe for a brief period. We’ve removed a significant amount of animal feeding and seen what’s come up.”
Bushes and shrub lines are a ideal nightingale habitat, she explains, but today they’re trimming some of the wild growth to establish a increased diversity of habitats and to connect different sections of the property. Fresh plantings will take a while to establish, but saplings from the surrounding oaks are already growing in the open areas; the crew have been setting up guards to safeguard them from grazing deer.
Animals Comes Back in Large Numbers
In addition to the songbirds – animals is reappearing in abundance. Recently they’ve seen reptiles, creatures, nocturnal mammals and bugs, explains Noah Bennett, as he raises one of their monitoring tools (like a doormat over a small hollow in the soil). “You get snakes and wildlife hiding under there, but it’s probably a bit cool for them now.” Wild homes, constructed from hollowed-out sections of wood and buzzing with wild bees, are strapped to some of the woodland. The removal of livestock has allowed small creatures space to thrive in the long grass. When they explored this season, comments he, “I’d never seen so countless insects. There were just swarms of them. We were saying, ‘What is happening?’”
Inception of the Movement
The original Youngwilders – Bennett, Durant, Molly and more individuals – united as students, focusing on or having an passion in ecology. In 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was predicting that the safe limit of one and a half degrees of global heating was looking unachievable, the activist was leading the youth protests for climate movement, and activist Clover Hogan was addressing youth experiencing “eco-worry”. It was also the era of a writer's publication, about nature recovery, on how they changed the a Sussex location from a failing dairy farm into a successful natural habitat. “We were highly motivated by the case study, but what was the part for youth?” questions Easton. “So we developed a online presence and contacted many of wildlife trusts and were asking, ‘Do you sometimes get your estate holders wishing to make changes and you don’t have capacity?’”
Jack continues the story: “Our whole organisation was basically founded 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 significant choices that would affect land value
