The manically melodic call of the songbird is a uncommon presence in England these days, but it's different at the Surrey site. Previously, a lone bird could be detected at this remote spot in rural Surrey; recently, they were everywhere. “We were hearing them calling all night, from five different territories,” notes Meg Cookson, lead ecologist for the youth rewilding group. A team of volunteers were residing temporarily at the location, however the birds were so boisterous, “we were unable to rest all night,” says a project coordinator. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so cool.” An specialist from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them trap and mark one of the nightingales the next morning, the ecologist remembers: “He’d never touched a nightingale in his care before. He was teary.”
Rewilding Speeds Up at This Location
Rewilding is by nature a lengthy business, but at this site at the farm, after just four years, the changes are already visible, and audible. The property was once a retirement home for animals. Today it’s a example for the Youngwilders’ purpose: to accelerate nature recovery, in one of the biodiversity-poor nations in the world, and to link young people (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often denied access to, and a climate crisis they are often powerless to prevent. Rising temperatures continues, habitat loss eliminates ecosystems, and another climate conference draws to a unsatisfactory end in Brazil – so who could fault youth for choosing to take matters into their own hands?
The project was premised on the belief that there were people ready to permit a group of young amateurs on to their property
“The younger generation is the best educated environmentally that there’s previously,” says the group's leader, a key figure. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the challenges, and have played the least to their creation, and, then, are also going to experience consequences the greatest as a result.”
Change of the Site
Now, the organisation is growing across the Britain – and Maple Farm was the beginning, in multiple ways. “It’s where we started, and the place we established our network,” notes another co-director, as she gives a overview of the expansive property. “This was previously multiple separate areas,” she comments, as we move through long grass featuring bushes, surrounded by established trees. “The primary noticeable change is that we’ve removed all the fencing, 1.2km of it, to make it feel like a single landscape.” In the summer, they used special clothing and eradicated large amounts of giant hogweed, an invasive species that can harm the skin. “We’ve established many of bush lines,” says Easton. “But the key action is we’ve just given it space for a short time. We’ve reduced a large part of livestock impact and seen what’s come up.”
Low scrub and shrub lines are a perfect songbird habitat, she explains, however today they’re managing some of the thorny plants to establish a greater diversity of habitats and to connect separate areas of the land. Fresh plantings will take a while to establish, but young trees from the adjacent oaks are already growing in the meadows; the group have been placing barriers to shield them from wildlife.
Wildlife Reappears in Abundance
There's more than the songbirds – fauna is returning in droves. Lately they’ve observed serpents, slowworms, bats and bugs, explains a team member, as he lifts up one of their survey equipment (similar to a cover over a indentation in the ground). “You discover creatures and wildlife sheltering under there, but it’s possibly a somewhat cool for them now.” Wild nests, made from empty parts of timber and humming with insects, are strapped to some of the woodland. The lack of livestock has given insects room to flourish in the long grass. When they explored this season, comments the director, “I’d never observed so countless lepidoptera. There were just swarms of them. We were like, ‘What is happening?’”
Origins of the Project
The original Youngwilders – Bennett, Jack, Easton and more individuals – united as youth, focusing on or expressing an concern in nature. In that year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was indicating that the acceptable threshold of one and a half degrees of global heating was seeming unachievable, the activist was guiding the youth protests for environmental action, and advocate another voice was discussing youth suffering from “environmental stress”. It was also the time of Isabella Tree’s book, on rewilding, on how they revitalized the a nearby property from a unsuccessful dairy farm into a successful ecosystem. “We were super-inspired by the example, but what was the part for the next generation?” questions Molly. “So we made a online presence and contacted loads of environmental organizations and were saying, ‘Do you sometimes get your landowners seeking to make changes and you don’t have capacity?’”
Jack explains the narrative: “Our whole organisation was basically premised on the belief that there were people who were willing to allow a group of young amateurs on to their property freely, to make major decisions that would impact land value
