The beautifully intricate call of the songbird is a rare sound in Britain these days, yet it's different at the Surrey site. Previously, a single nightingale could be heard at this hidden spot in rural Surrey; this summer, they were in multiple locations. “We were hearing them singing all night, from several zones,” explains one ecologist, top biologist for the youth rewilding group. A group of Youngwilders were residing temporarily at the site, but the nightingales were so loud, “we were unable to rest all night,” says Layla Mapemba. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so incredible.” An expert from the local conservation group came to help them trap and mark one of the songbirds the next morning, Cookson remembers: “He’d never held a songbird in his possession before. He was emotional.”
Rewilding Speeds Up at This Location
Rewilding is by nature a lengthy process, but at this site at Maple Farm, after merely four years, the outcomes are already visible, and audible. The property previously served as a sanctuary for horses. Now it’s a showpiece for the youth-led goal: to speed up habitat revival, in one of the ecologically impoverished regions in the globe, and to connect the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often shut out of, and a environmental emergency they are often ineffectual to halt. Global heating persists, deforestation destroys natural habitats, and one more Cop summit draws to a disappointing end in Brazil – so what person could fault the younger generation for choosing to act independently?
The project was premised on the notion that there were landowners ready to permit a collection of youthful enthusiasts on to their land
“The younger generation is the most informed in terms of nature that there’s historically,” says the Youngwilders’ leader, Jack Durant. They are also “the highly invested in the issues, and have played the minimal role to their creation, and, then, are also going to experience consequences the worst as a result.”
Revitalization of the Site
Now, the group is growing across the UK – and the original site planted the seed, in every sense. “It’s our origin point, and the place we created our network,” explains a founding member, as she gives a walkthrough of the expansive land. “This used to be six different fields,” she says, as we stroll through long grass dotted with shrubs, surrounded by forest. “The main noticeable change is that we’ve taken out all the fencing, a significant length of it, to make it feel like one landscape.” In the summer, they wore special clothing and cleared significant quantities of invasive plants, an non-native plant that can irritate the skin. “We’ve established many of natural barriers,” says she. “But the primary focus is we’ve just let it breathe for a brief period. We’ve removed a lot of animal feeding and seen what’s sprung up.”
Underbrush and shrub lines are a excellent nightingale home, she comments, although today they’re managing some of the wild growth to develop a more variety of ecosystems and to link up different sections of the land. Fresh plantings will take a while to grow, but saplings from the surrounding trees are already establishing themselves in the fields; the team have been placing guards to shield them from wildlife.
Nature Comes Back in Large Numbers
In addition to the nightingales – wildlife is coming back in abundance. Lately they’ve seen reptiles, slowworms, bats and invertebrates, notes Noah Bennett, as he lifts up one of their reptile mats (like a doormat over a depression in the earth). “You find creatures and wildlife hiding under there, but it’s possibly a bit cold for them now.” Natural homes, constructed from hollowed-out parts of wood and buzzing with pollinators, are attached to some of the trees. The absence of livestock has given insects space to prosper in the long grass. When they explored this summer, comments the director, “I’d not once seen so numerous insects. There were just masses of them. We were saying, ‘What is occurring?’”
Beginnings of the Initiative
The original participants – Bennett, Jack, Molly and more individuals – came together as students, studying or expressing an concern in environmental science. In that year, the IPCC was predicting that the safe limit of 1.5C of warming was appearing out of reach, the activist was guiding the demonstrations for environmental action, and activist a speaker was addressing young people experiencing “eco-worry”. It was also the time of Isabella Tree’s book, on rewilding, on how they revitalized the Knepp Estate from a failing farm into a flourishing wildlife haven. “We were super-inspired by the example, but what was the role for young people?” asks Easton. “So we developed a website and contacted many of environmental organizations and were asking, ‘Do you sometimes get your landowners wishing to make changes and you don’t have resources?’”
Jack explains the story: “Our whole project was basically premised on the notion that there were landowners who were willing to allow a group of young enthusiasts on to their property indiscriminately, to take major actions that would impact land value
