The beautifully intricate melody of the nightingale is a uncommon occurrence in Britain these days, however not at this rural location. Back in 2020, a solitary nightingale could be detected at this remote spot in the countryside of Surrey; lately, they were all around. “We were listening to them singing all night, from multiple areas,” explains Meg Cookson, top biologist for the Youngwilders. A group of participants were staying overnight at the location, but the birds were so noisy, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” comments an engagement lead. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so incredible.” An professional from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them capture and tag one of the songbirds the next morning, she states: “He’d never handled a nightingale in his care before. He was emotional.”
Rewilding Accelerates at This Location
Nature recovery is by definition a lengthy endeavor, but in this place at Maple Farm, after merely several seasons, the results are already evident, and audible. The land used to be a retirement home for horses. Today it’s a model for the youth-led goal: to accelerate nature recovery, in one of the biodiversity-poor nations in the world, and to engage young people (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often denied access to, and a global warming issue they are often powerless to prevent. Climate change persists, tree clearing damages ecosystems, and one more Cop summit comes to a unsatisfactory outcome in abroad – so what person could blame young people for choosing to take matters into their own hands?
Our initiative was founded on the idea that there were landowners prepared to let a group of young amateurs on to their land
“The youth is the best educated ecologically that there’s historically,” explains the Youngwilders’ founder, Jack Durant. They are also “the deeply concerned in the issues, and have played the smallest part to their creation, and, then, are also going to suffer the worst as a consequence.”
Change of the Landscape
Today, the initiative is growing across the United Kingdom – and this location planted the seed, in multiple ways. “It’s the initial project, and where we created our connections,” explains a founding member, as she gives a walkthrough of the 12-hectare property. “This used to be divided plots,” she says, as we stroll through overgrown meadows filled with low scrub, hemmed by established trees. “The primary visible transformation is that we’ve removed all the fencing, 1.2km of it, to make it feel like one environment.” In the warmer months, they wore hazmat suits and removed large amounts of giant hogweed, an invasive species that can harm the skin. “We’ve planted loads of hedgerows,” notes the director. “But the key action is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a little bit. We’ve eliminated a lot of livestock impact and noticed what’s emerged.”
Low scrub and natural fences are a excellent songbird home, she explains, however today they’re trimming some of the wild growth to create a more diversity of habitats and to join different sections of the property. New trees will take a while to establish, but new growth from the nearby woodland are already growing in the fields; the crew have been installing barriers to protect them from wildlife.
Nature Returns in Droves
It’s not just the songbirds – wildlife is returning in droves. Lately they’ve seen serpents, creatures, nocturnal mammals and bugs, explains a team member, as he uncovers one of their monitoring tools (similar to a doormat over a indentation in the ground). “You discover snakes and wildlife residing under there, but it’s possibly a slightly cool for them now.” Natural nests, made from hollowed-out pieces of wood and humming with insects, are attached to some of the woodland. The absence of animals has given insects space to flourish in the meadows. When they visited this season, comments the director, “I’d never seen so many lepidoptera. There were just masses of them. We were like, ‘What is happening?’”
Beginnings of the Project
The initial participants – Noah, Jack, Molly and additional members – united as learners, studying or sharing an interest in nature. In that year, the IPCC was predicting that the safe limit of one and a half degrees of climate change was seeming unachievable, Greta Thunberg was guiding the demonstrations for eco-awareness, and campaigner a speaker was talking about the generation experiencing “eco-worry”. It was also the period of the author's work, about nature recovery, on how she and her husband transformed the a nearby property from a unsuccessful farm into a successful ecosystem. “We were highly motivated by the case study, but what could be the role for youth?” questions Molly. “So we created a platform and called loads of wildlife trusts and were asking, ‘Do you occasionally get your property owners wanting to take action and you are short on time?’”
Jack adds the narrative: “Our entire organisation was fundamentally founded on the belief that there were individuals who were prepared to permit a group of youthful idiots on to their property indiscriminately, to make significant choices that would affect land value
