The manically melodic call of the songbird is a uncommon occurrence in England these days, however it's different at Maple Farm. Four years ago, a lone bird could be detected at this secluded spot in rural Surrey; lately, they were in multiple locations. “We were listening to them chirping all night, from five different territories,” explains a lead scientist, lead ecologist for the Youngwilders. A group of participants were staying overnight at the property, but the birds were so noisy, “we stayed awake all night,” remarks a project coordinator. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so incredible.” An expert from the local conservation group came to help them capture and tag one of the songbirds the next morning, she remembers: “He’d never touched a nightingale in his possession before. He was crying.”
Rewilding Speeds Up at the Surrey Site
Nature recovery is by nature a gradual business, but at this site at this property, after only a short period, the outcomes are already evident, and hearable. The property used to be a sanctuary for horses. Currently it’s a example for the youth-led mission: to hasten habitat revival, in one of the biodiversity-poor regions in the planet, and to engage the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often excluded from, and a global warming issue they are often powerless to prevent. Global heating advances, habitat loss destroys ecosystems, and yet another climate conference comes to a disappointing conclusion in the host country – so what person could criticize the younger generation for wanting to initiate change themselves?
The initiative was premised on the notion that there were people prepared to allow a collection of young amateurs on to their estate
“The youth is the most informed environmentally that there’s previously,” states the group's co-director, one organizer. They are also “the highly invested in the problems, and have added the least to their causing, and, then, are also going to experience consequences the greatest as a consequence.”
Change of the Landscape
Currently, the group is growing across the UK – and the original site planted the seed, in all respects. “It’s where we started, and where we built our connections,” says a founding member, as she gives a walkthrough of the 30-acre property. “This once consisted of divided plots,” she says, as we move through tall vegetation filled with shrubs, bordered by mature woodland. “The key visible change is that we’ve eliminated all the fencing, 1.2km of it, to make it feel like a single environment.” In the warmer months, they wore special clothing and removed significant quantities of harmful weeds, an invasive species that can irritate the flesh. “We’ve introduced loads of natural barriers,” notes she. “But the key action is we’ve just given it space for a short time. We’ve reduced a large part of animal feeding and noticed what’s emerged.”
Bushes and shrub lines are a ideal songbird environment, she comments, but currently they’re trimming some of the brambles to develop a greater variety of environments and to link up different sections of the property. New trees will take a while to establish, but saplings from the adjacent woodland are already establishing themselves in the open areas; the crew have been installing guards to safeguard them from wildlife.
Nature Returns in Large Numbers
It’s not just the nightingales – wildlife is reappearing in abundance. This year they’ve observed reptiles, slowworms, flyers and insects, says Noah Bennett, as he lifts up one of their monitoring tools (such as a doormat over a small hollow in the ground). “You discover creatures and things residing under there, but it’s probably a somewhat cold for them now.” Natural nests, built using empty pieces of wood and buzzing with pollinators, are attached to some of the woodland. The lack of livestock has allowed small creatures space to thrive in the overgrown areas. When they explored this time, comments the director, “I’d never observed so many insects. There were just swarms of them. We were wondering, ‘What is going on?’”
Origins of the Movement
The original founders – Bennett, Jack, Molly and additional members – formed as learners, focusing on or having an concern in environmental science. In that year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was forecasting that the safe limit of 1.5C of global heating was looking out of reach, Greta Thunberg was guiding the demonstrations for environmental action, and activist Clover Hogan was talking about young people suffering from “climate anxiety”. It was also the period of Isabella Tree’s book, Wilding, on how they changed the Knepp Estate from a struggling agricultural business into a successful ecosystem. “We were deeply influenced by the case study, but what was the role for young people?” says Easton. “So we developed a website and contacted numerous of environmental organizations and were asking, ‘Do you sometimes get your landowners wanting to take action and you lack resources?’”
Durant adds the narrative: “Our whole organisation was fundamentally premised on the belief that there were people who were prepared to allow a group of youthful idiots on to their property without strict rules, to make fairly massive choices that would affect land value
