That beautifully intricate call of the songbird is a uncommon presence in the UK nowadays, but it's different at Maple Farm. Previously, a solitary bird could be detected at this remote location in rural Surrey; this summer, they were in multiple locations. “We were listening to them calling all night, from several zones,” explains one ecologist, top biologist for the youth rewilding group. A group of participants were staying overnight at the location, but the nightingales were so noisy, “we stayed awake all night,” says an engagement lead. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so incredible.” An professional from the regional nature organization came to help them net and ring one of the nightingales the next morning, she remembers: “He’d never handled a nightingale in his hands before. He was teary.”
Habitat Revival Accelerates at the Surrey Site
Rewilding is by definition a slow business, but here at the farm, after merely a short period, the results are already visible, and audible. The property was once a sanctuary for horses. Now it’s a showpiece for the youth-led mission: to speed up habitat revival, in one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, and to engage youth (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often denied access to, and a climate crisis they are often ineffectual to halt. Global heating continues, deforestation destroys wildlife homes, and one more climate conference ends with a disappointing end in Brazil – so who could criticize young people for wanting to initiate change themselves?
Our organisation was founded on the idea that there were people willing to let a collection of young enthusiasts on to their property
“The younger generation is the most informed environmentally that there’s previously,” says the Youngwilders’ leader, Jack Durant. They are also “the highly invested in the problems, and have played the least to their causing, and, then, are also going to suffer most as a result.”
Transformation of the Site
Currently, the group is growing across the Britain – and the original site was the beginning, in multiple ways. “It’s our origin point, and the place we established our connections,” says Molly Easton, as she provides a tour of the 12-hectare site. “This once consisted of six different fields,” she states, as we stroll through long grass filled with shrubs, bordered by mature woodland. “The main visual difference is that we’ve taken out all the enclosures, a significant length of it, to create the impression like a unified environment.” In the recent season, they used special clothing and cleared significant quantities of invasive plants, an aggressive flora that can harm the skin. “We’ve planted loads of bush lines,” explains the director. “But the primary focus is we’ve just let it breathe for a brief period. We’ve eliminated a significant amount of animal feeding and observed what’s come up.”
Bushes and shrub lines are a ideal songbird home, she comments, but today they’re managing some of the thorny plants to establish a more range of ecosystems and to join separate areas of the property. New trees will take much more time to establish, but saplings from the nearby oaks are already growing in the open areas; the crew have been setting up barriers to safeguard them from wildlife.
Animals Reappears in Droves
It’s not just the songbirds – animals is reappearing in large numbers. This year they’ve observed serpents, creatures, nocturnal mammals and insects, notes Noah Bennett, as he uncovers one of their reptile mats (similar to a mat over a small hollow in the soil). “You find reptiles and animals residing under there, but it’s probably a bit cold for them now.” Natural nests, built using hollowed-out sections of timber and buzzing with pollinators, are attached to some of the woodland. The absence of grazing horses has provided insects opportunity to flourish in the overgrown areas. When they came to this time, comments he, “I’d never encountered so countless butterflies. There were just swarms of them. We were wondering, ‘What is going on?’”
Beginnings of the Initiative
The first Youngwilders – Noah, Jack, Molly and additional members – formed as learners, pursuing or having an passion in nature. In 2019, the IPCC was predicting that the target of one and a half degrees of warming was looking unachievable, Greta Thunberg was guiding the youth protests for climate movement, and advocate a speaker was addressing youth suffering from “climate anxiety”. It was also the time of a writer's publication, on rewilding, on how the authors revitalized the Knepp Estate from a failing agricultural business into a flourishing ecosystem. “We were highly motivated by the case study, but what was the function for youth?” questions Easton. “So we made a website and contacted many of environmental organizations and were asking, ‘Do you ever get your estate holders wishing to make changes and you lack capacity?’”
Durant explains the account: “Our entire project was basically based on the idea that there were people who were willing to let a group of young amateurs on to their property without strict rules, to decide on fairly massive actions that would affect land value
