The richly complex call of the nightingale is a scarce sound in the UK nowadays, however it's different at this rural location. Back in 2020, a single nightingale could be noticed at this remote spot in rural Surrey; this summer, they were all around. “We were hearing them singing all night, from multiple areas,” explains Meg Cookson, lead ecologist for the Youngwilders. A band of Youngwilders were camping out at the site, but the birds were so boisterous, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” says a project coordinator. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so incredible.” An professional from the regional nature organization came to help them trap and mark one of the songbirds the next morning, Cookson remembers: “He’d never held a nightingale in his possession before. He was crying.”
Rewilding Progresses at the Surrey Site
Ecological restoration is by definition a slow business, but at this site at Maple Farm, after just four years, the outcomes are already evident, and hearable. The property used to be a sanctuary for horses. Currently it’s a example for the youth-led purpose: to hasten ecological restoration, in one of the biodiversity-poor countries in the world, and to engage the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often shut out of, and a environmental emergency they are often powerless to prevent. Climate change continues, tree clearing eliminates natural habitats, and one more Cop summit comes to a frustrating end in Brazil – so who could criticize youth for wanting to take matters into their own hands?
The organisation was founded on the idea that there were individuals ready to permit a collection of youthful idiots on to their land
“The youth is the best educated in terms of nature that there’s historically,” explains the Youngwilders’ co-director, one organizer. They are also “the highly invested in the problems, and have added the smallest part to their origin, and, then, are also going to experience consequences the worst as a result.”
Change of the Site
Currently, the organisation is expanding across the UK – and this location planted the seed, in every sense. “It’s our origin point, and the place we built our connections,” notes a founding member, as she gives a walkthrough of the 30-acre land. “This was previously multiple separate areas,” she says, as we move through overgrown meadows featuring shrubs, hemmed by established trees. “The key visual change is that we’ve taken out all the enclosures, 1.2km of it, to make it feel like a unified area.” In the warmer months, they donned hazmat suits and eradicated masses of invasive plants, an non-native plant that can burn the flesh. “We’ve planted numerous of hedgerows,” explains Easton. “But the main thing is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a short time. We’ve removed a lot of animal feeding and seen what’s emerged.”
Low scrub and natural fences are a ideal songbird environment, she comments, however now they’re cutting back some of the wild growth to create a greater variety of environments and to connect two parts of the property. Young saplings will take much more time to take root, but young trees from the surrounding oaks are already taking root in the meadows; the team have been placing barriers to safeguard them from wildlife.
Wildlife Reappears in Droves
It’s not just the nightingales – wildlife is reappearing in droves. Recently they’ve observed serpents, slowworms, nocturnal mammals and invertebrates, explains another co-director, as he lifts up one of their monitoring tools (such as a cover over a indentation in the ground). “You find creatures and wildlife hiding under there, but it’s possibly a bit cold for them now.” Wild beehives, constructed from empty parts of wood and active with wild bees, are fixed to some of the plants. The lack of grazing horses has provided small creatures opportunity to thrive in the overgrown areas. When they explored this summer, says he, “I’d not ever seen so numerous lepidoptera. There were just swarms of them. We were like, ‘What is occurring?’”
Beginnings of the Project
The initial Youngwilders – Bennett, Jack, Molly and additional members – united as learners, pursuing or expressing an passion in ecology. In 2019, the climate experts was indicating that the safe limit of 1.5C of warming was appearing out of reach, Greta Thunberg was spearheading the youth protests for eco-awareness, and campaigner Clover Hogan was discussing youth feeling “environmental stress”. It was also the era of the author's publication, Wilding, on how they changed the a Sussex location from a unsuccessful agricultural business into a thriving ecosystem. “We were highly motivated by the case study, but what was the function for youth?” questions Molly. “So we made a platform and called numerous of conservation groups and were like, ‘Do you occasionally get your property owners seeking to make changes and you don’t have resources?’”
Jack adds the story: “Our whole initiative was essentially based on the notion that there were individuals who were ready to allow a collection of youthful idiots on to their estate freely, to make major decisions that would affect land value
