That manically melodic call of the nightingale is a rare presence in England these days, yet it's different at this rural location. Back in 2020, a solitary bird could be detected at this secluded place in rural Surrey; lately, they were everywhere. “We were hearing them calling all night, from multiple areas,” notes one ecologist, lead ecologist for the youth rewilding group. A band of volunteers were residing temporarily at the location, however the nightingales were so boisterous, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” says a project coordinator. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so incredible.” An specialist from the local conservation group came to help them capture and tag one of the songbirds the next morning, the ecologist remembers: “He’d never touched a nightingale in his hands before. He was crying.”
Habitat Revival Speeds Up at Maple Farm
Rewilding is by its very essence a slow business, but in this place at Maple Farm, after merely a short period, the results are already visible, and hearable. The land was once a retirement home for equines. Currently it’s a model for the Youngwilders’ purpose: to hasten ecological restoration, in one of the most nature-depleted countries in the planet, and to link the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often shut out of, and a environmental emergency they are often powerless to halt. Global heating persists, habitat loss eliminates ecosystems, and yet another Cop summit draws to a disappointing end in the host country – so who could blame youth for choosing to act independently?
The project was premised on the notion that there were individuals prepared to allow a collection of young enthusiasts on to their land
“The younger generation is the most knowledgeable in terms of nature that there’s ever been,” says the group's leader, one organizer. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the problems, and have played the smallest part to their origin, and, then, are also going to suffer the greatest as a outcome.”
Revitalization of the Property
Now, the group is expanding across the United Kingdom – and this location was the beginning, in every sense. “It’s the initial project, and the place we built our network,” says a founding member, as she gives a walkthrough of the expansive land. “This once consisted of multiple separate areas,” she states, as we walk through long grass filled with low scrub, surrounded by mature woodland. “The key visible difference is that we’ve taken out all the enclosures, a significant length of it, to create the impression like a single environment.” In the warmer months, they used special clothing and eradicated significant quantities of invasive plants, an invasive species that can irritate the body. “We’ve introduced many of bush lines,” says she. “But the key action is we’ve just let it breathe for a brief period. We’ve eliminated a lot of animal feeding and observed what’s come up.”
Low scrub and natural fences are a perfect nightingale home, she explains, although currently they’re managing some of the thorny plants to create a more diversity of environments and to connect two parts of the site. Young saplings will take considerably longer to grow, but new growth from the nearby trees are already establishing themselves in the open areas; the team have been installing guards to protect them from wildlife.
Nature Reappears in Large Numbers
It’s not just the songbirds – wildlife is reappearing in abundance. Recently they’ve observed reptiles, legless lizards, flyers and invertebrates, explains Noah Bennett, as he raises one of their monitoring tools (like a doormat over a indentation in the earth). “You find snakes and things sheltering under there, but it’s probably a bit cool for them now.” Organic nests, built using carved pieces of tree trunk and humming with insects, are strapped to some of the trees. The lack of grazing horses has given insects space to flourish in the meadows. When they explored this season, comments he, “I’d not ever seen so many butterflies. There were just masses of them. We were saying, ‘What is happening?’”
Beginnings of the Movement
The initial Youngwilders – Bennett, Jack, Molly and two others – formed as learners, studying or sharing an interest in environmental science. In 2019, the IPCC was predicting that the target of one and a half degrees of warming was seeming out of reach, a prominent figure was guiding the school strikes for environmental action, and campaigner another voice was talking about youth feeling “climate anxiety”. It was also the era of the author's publication, about nature recovery, on how she and her husband revitalized the a nearby property from a struggling agricultural business into a thriving wildlife haven. “We were highly motivated by the example, but what could be the part for youth?” questions Molly. “So we created a website and called loads of wildlife trusts and were asking, ‘Do you sometimes get your property owners wanting to make changes and you don’t have capacity?’”
Jack continues the narrative: “Our entire organisation was fundamentally premised on the belief that there were people who were willing to allow a collection of young enthusiasts on to their property freely, to take significant decisions that would change land value
