The beautifully intricate melody of the songbird is a rare occurrence in the UK nowadays, yet it's different at this rural location. Back in 2020, a single bird could be heard at this remote spot in rural Surrey; this summer, they were all around. “We were hearing them singing all night, from five different territories,” says a lead scientist, top biologist for the youth rewilding group. A band of participants were residing temporarily at the location, however the nightingales were so loud, “we stayed awake all night,” says an engagement lead. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so amazing.” An specialist from the regional nature organization came to help them trap and mark one of the birds the next morning, Cookson recalls: “He’d never held a songbird in his care before. He was crying.”
Rewilding Speeds Up at Maple Farm
Rewilding is by nature a lengthy process, but at this site at this property, after only four years, the results are already evident, and hearable. The property used to be a retirement home for equines. Now it’s a model for the Youngwilders’ purpose: to speed up habitat revival, in one of the ecologically impoverished countries in the planet, and to engage youth (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often denied access to, and a climate crisis they are often ineffectual to prevent. Rising temperatures advances, deforestation damages ecosystems, and yet another Cop summit comes to a frustrating end in abroad – so who could criticize the younger generation for wishing to take matters into their own hands?
The project was based on the belief that there were people ready to allow a bunch of young enthusiasts on to their land
“The younger generation is the best educated environmentally that there’s previously,” states the group's co-director, Jack Durant. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the problems, and have played the least to their causing, and, then, are also going to suffer the greatest as a consequence.”
Transformation of the Landscape
Now, the organisation is expanding across the United Kingdom – and this location planted the seed, in every sense. “It’s where we started, and the place we established our community,” says another co-director, as she offers a walkthrough of the 12-hectare site. “This was previously multiple separate areas,” she comments, as we stroll through overgrown meadows dotted with low scrub, hemmed by forest. “The key noticeable transformation is that we’ve removed all the fencing, over a kilometer of it, to give the sense like one landscape.” In the summer, they wore protective gear and cleared masses of harmful weeds, an invasive species that can burn the skin. “We’ve planted many of hedgerows,” explains the director. “But the key action is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a little bit. We’ve removed a lot of grazing pressure and noticed what’s sprung up.”
Bushes and hedgerows are a excellent nightingale home, she explains, but now they’re cutting back some of the thorny plants to establish a greater diversity of environments and to link up two parts of the land. New trees will take a while to take root, but young trees from the adjacent trees are already establishing themselves in the fields; the team have been setting up protectors to safeguard them from grazing deer.
Animals Returns in Large Numbers
It’s not just the songbirds – animals is reappearing in abundance. Recently they’ve seen serpents, legless lizards, nocturnal mammals and insects, explains a team member, as he uncovers one of their reptile mats (like a doormat over a small hollow in the earth). “You find creatures and things hiding under there, but it’s probably a bit chilly for them now.” Natural beehives, made from hollowed-out parts of wood and humming with insects, are attached to some of the trees. The removal of animals has provided small creatures room to flourish in the long grass. When they visited this time, says Bennett, “I’d not once encountered so countless butterflies. There were just clouds of them. We were saying, ‘What is happening?’”
Inception of the Movement
The initial Youngwilders – Bennett, Jack, Easton and two others – came together as students, pursuing or sharing an interest in ecology. In 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was forecasting that the target of one and a half degrees of global heating was appearing out of reach, a prominent figure was spearheading the school strikes for environmental action, and activist a speaker was talking about the generation suffering from “climate anxiety”. It was also the time of the author's publication, about nature recovery, on how she and her husband changed the a nearby property from a unsuccessful dairy farm into a thriving wildlife haven. “We were deeply influenced by the example, but what could be the role for the next generation?” questions Molly. “So we made a website and contacted numerous of conservation groups and were saying, ‘Do you occasionally get your property owners seeking to do something and you are short on resources?’”
Jack adds the narrative: “Our whole initiative was fundamentally founded on the idea that there were individuals who were ready to permit a bunch of youthful enthusiasts on to their property indiscriminately, to take major decisions that would impact land value
