That richly complex song of the songbird is a uncommon occurrence in the UK these days, yet not at this rural location. Previously, a solitary nightingale could be noticed at this secluded spot in rural Surrey; lately, they were everywhere. “We were listening to them chirping all night, from several zones,” says one ecologist, top biologist for the Youngwilders. A band of participants were residing temporarily at the property, but the birds were so noisy, “we were unable to rest all night,” says a project coordinator. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so amazing.” An specialist from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them capture and tag one of the nightingales the next morning, Cookson remembers: “He’d never touched a songbird in his possession before. He was teary.”
Habitat Revival Speeds Up at This Location
Rewilding is by its very essence a slow business, but here at the farm, after merely several seasons, the changes are already evident, and hearable. The property used to be a retirement home for animals. Currently it’s a showpiece for the Youngwilders’ purpose: to hasten nature recovery, in one of the most nature-depleted regions in the planet, and to connect youth (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often shut out of, and a environmental emergency they are often unable to stop. Rising temperatures persists, tree clearing destroys ecosystems, and yet another international meeting draws to a disappointing conclusion in abroad – so what person could blame young people for wanting to act independently?
The initiative was based on the idea that there were landowners ready to allow a collection of youthful idiots on to their estate
“The newer cohort is the best educated ecologically that there’s ever been,” states the Youngwilders’ co-director, a key figure. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the challenges, and have played the smallest part to their origin, and, then, are also going to be affected most as a consequence.”
Change of the Property
Today, the initiative is expanding across the UK – and Maple Farm started it all, in multiple ways. “It’s the initial project, and the place we created our network,” says Molly Easton, as she gives a walkthrough of the expansive property. “This once consisted of six different fields,” she says, as we stroll through tall vegetation featuring shrubs, surrounded by established trees. “The key noticeable transformation is that we’ve removed all the fencing, 1.2km of it, to make it feel like a single landscape.” In the warmer months, they wore hazmat suits and eradicated masses of invasive plants, an invasive species that can harm the skin. “We’ve established many of hedgerows,” explains the director. “But the key action is we’ve just let it breathe for a brief period. We’ve reduced a significant amount of animal feeding and noticed what’s come up.”
Low scrub and natural fences are a ideal nightingale environment, she says, but today they’re managing some of the wild growth to develop a greater range of habitats and to join different sections of the land. New trees will take considerably longer to grow, but young trees from the adjacent woodland are already growing in the fields; the team have been setting up barriers to protect them from grazing deer.
Wildlife Reappears in Droves
In addition to the songbirds – wildlife is returning in droves. Lately they’ve observed reptiles, creatures, bats and bugs, notes Noah Bennett, as he raises one of their survey equipment (like a mat over a small hollow in the soil). “You find reptiles and things residing under there, but it’s probably a bit cool for them now.” Wild nests, made from empty pieces of timber and buzzing with insects, are fixed to some of the plants. The lack of livestock has allowed invertebrates opportunity to thrive in the overgrown areas. When they visited this summer, comments Bennett, “I’d not once observed so many lepidoptera. There were just masses of them. We were like, ‘What is going on?’”
Beginnings of the Project
The initial participants – Noah, Durant, Easton and additional members – united as students, studying or sharing an interest in ecology. In that year, the climate experts was forecasting that the safe limit of 1.5C of global heating was appearing out of reach, Greta Thunberg was leading the school strikes for environmental action, and campaigner a speaker was discussing young people feeling “environmental stress”. It was also the era of the author's book, on rewilding, on how she and her husband changed the Knepp Estate from a failing dairy farm into a thriving natural habitat. “We were highly motivated by the Knepp story, but what could be the part for the next generation?” asks Molly. “So we made a platform and called many of conservation groups and were like, ‘Do you sometimes get your property owners wanting to do something and you are short on capacity?’”
Durant explains the story: “Our entire organisation was fundamentally based on the idea that there were individuals who were willing to permit a collection of youthful enthusiasts on to their property freely, to take major choices that would change land value
