The beautifully intricate call of the songbird is a rare occurrence in the UK these days, yet not at this rural location. Back in 2020, a single nightingale could be heard at this secluded location in the countryside of Surrey; lately, they were in multiple locations. “We were listening to them chirping all night, from five different territories,” notes Meg Cookson, chief environmental expert for the youth rewilding group. A group of Youngwilders were camping out at the site, but the birds were so loud, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” says Layla Mapemba. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so amazing.” An expert from the local conservation group came to help them net and ring one of the nightingales the next morning, the ecologist recalls: “He’d never touched a songbird in his care before. He was crying.”
Rewilding Progresses at This Location
Rewilding is by definition a slow business, but in this place at Maple Farm, after only four years, the changes are already evident, and noticeable. The farm used to be a haven for horses. Today it’s a showpiece for the Youngwilders’ mission: to accelerate habitat revival, in one of the biodiversity-poor countries in the world, and to engage young people (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often shut out of, and a climate crisis they are often ineffectual to stop. Rising temperatures continues, deforestation damages natural habitats, and one more climate conference draws to a frustrating outcome in Brazil – so who could fault young people for wanting to act independently?
Our initiative was based on the belief that there were landowners willing to let a group of young idiots on to their property
“The youth is the most informed environmentally that there’s previously,” explains the Youngwilders’ co-director, one organizer. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the issues, and have contributed the least to their causing, and, then, are also going to experience consequences the greatest as a result.”
Revitalization of the Landscape
Today, the initiative is growing across the UK – and this location was the beginning, in every sense. “It’s where we started, and where we created our connections,” says a founding member, as she offers a overview of the expansive property. “This used to be six different fields,” she says, as we stroll through overgrown meadows dotted with bushes, surrounded by established trees. “The primary noticeable difference is that we’ve taken out all the enclosures, a significant length of it, to give the sense like one landscape.” In the summer, they wore hazmat suits and removed large amounts of invasive plants, an non-native plant that can irritate the skin. “We’ve introduced loads of natural barriers,” notes the director. “But the key action is we’ve just given it space for a brief period. We’ve removed a large part of grazing pressure and noticed what’s sprung up.”
Bushes and natural fences are a ideal nightingale environment, she says, but today they’re trimming some of the wild growth to develop a more range of habitats and to link up separate areas of the site. New trees will take much more time to establish, but saplings from the adjacent trees are already taking root in the open areas; the group have been installing protectors to shield them from wildlife.
Wildlife Comes Back in Large Numbers
In addition to the songbirds – fauna is coming back in abundance. This year they’ve observed grass snakes, slowworms, nocturnal mammals and invertebrates, explains another co-director, as he uncovers one of their survey equipment (like a mat over a depression in the earth). “You find snakes and wildlife hiding under there, but it’s possibly a slightly cold for them now.” Organic nests, constructed from empty parts of tree trunk and active with wild bees, are attached to some of the woodland. The absence of animals has allowed insects room to flourish in the meadows. When they explored this time, states the director, “I’d never seen so countless lepidoptera. There were just swarms of them. We were wondering, ‘What is going on?’”
Inception of the Initiative
The initial founders – Noah, Jack, Easton and additional members – united as learners, studying or having an interest in ecology. In the recent past, the IPCC was predicting that the safe limit of 1.5C of global heating was seeming unachievable, the activist was guiding the demonstrations for eco-awareness, and activist a speaker was addressing the generation experiencing “eco-worry”. It was also the period of the author's book, Wilding, on how she and her husband revitalized the Knepp Estate from a failing farm into a flourishing ecosystem. “We were super-inspired by the example, but what could be the function for youth?” questions Molly. “So we made a online presence and contacted loads of conservation groups and were saying, ‘Do you sometimes get your property owners wishing to make changes and you don’t have resources?’”
Durant continues the narrative: “Our complete organisation was fundamentally premised on the notion that there were individuals who were prepared to permit a group of youthful enthusiasts on to their estate freely, to make major decisions that would affect land value
