The manically melodic melody of the nightingale is a uncommon presence in the UK nowadays, yet it's different at Maple Farm. Back in 2020, a lone nightingale could be detected at this hidden location in rural Surrey; this summer, they were everywhere. “We were listening to them calling all night, from five different territories,” explains Meg Cookson, chief environmental expert for the youth rewilding group. A band of volunteers were staying overnight at the location, however the birds were so noisy, “we stayed awake all night,” says an engagement lead. “We were all worn out 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 recalls: “He’d never touched a songbird in his care before. He was teary.”
Rewilding Speeds Up at the Surrey Site
Nature recovery is by nature a slow process, but in this place at Maple Farm, after merely four years, the results are already visible, and noticeable. The land previously served as a sanctuary for horses. Today it’s a showpiece for the Youngwilders’ goal: to speed up ecological restoration, in one of the ecologically impoverished regions in the planet, and to engage the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often denied access to, and a global warming issue they are often powerless to prevent. Climate change continues, habitat loss damages ecosystems, and yet another international meeting comes to a frustrating end in abroad – so who could blame youth for wanting to act independently?
The initiative was founded on the idea that there were individuals prepared to let a collection of young idiots on to their land
“The younger generation is the best educated ecologically that there’s historically,” explains the group's founder, one organizer. They are also “the highly invested in the challenges, and have played the smallest part to their origin, and, then, are also going to experience consequences most as a consequence.”
Change of the Site
Currently, the group is expanding across the Britain – and this location planted the seed, in all respects. “It’s the initial project, and the place we established our community,” explains another co-director, as she gives a walkthrough of the expansive land. “This was previously six different fields,” she states, as we walk through long grass featuring low scrub, bordered by established trees. “The key visible difference is that we’ve eliminated all the enclosures, 1.2km of it, to make it feel like one landscape.” In the summer, they used hazmat suits and removed masses of harmful weeds, an non-native plant that can burn the body. “We’ve planted many of natural barriers,” notes Easton. “But the main thing is we’ve just given it space for a brief period. We’ve reduced a lot of livestock impact and seen what’s emerged.”
Low scrub and shrub lines are a excellent nightingale home, she explains, but today they’re cutting back some of the brambles to create a greater range of habitats and to connect separate areas of the property. New trees will take a while to grow, but saplings from the surrounding woodland are already growing in the open areas; the team have been installing protectors to shield them from grazing deer.
Wildlife Returns in Droves
It’s not just the songbirds – fauna is reappearing in abundance. Lately they’ve observed serpents, legless lizards, flyers and bugs, explains Noah Bennett, as he raises one of their monitoring tools (like a cover over a indentation in the earth). “You discover reptiles and animals sheltering under there, but it’s probably a bit cold for them now.” Organic homes, constructed from empty pieces of timber and active with wild bees, are fixed to some of the woodland. The removal of animals has given invertebrates room to thrive in the meadows. When they visited this time, states the director, “I’d not ever seen so countless butterflies. There were just clouds of them. We were like, ‘What is going on?’”
Origins of the Movement
The initial participants – Bennett, Durant, Easton and two others – formed as learners, studying or having an concern in nature. In the recent past, the climate experts was indicating that the target of one and a half degrees of climate change was looking out of reach, Greta Thunberg was leading the school strikes for climate movement, and advocate Clover Hogan was talking about youth experiencing “environmental stress”. It was also the era of Isabella Tree’s publication, on rewilding, on how they revitalized the Knepp Estate from a unsuccessful agricultural business into a thriving ecosystem. “We were deeply influenced by the Knepp story, but what could be the role for youth?” says Molly. “So we made a platform and contacted numerous of wildlife trusts and were like, ‘Do you occasionally get your estate holders wanting to take action and you don’t have time?’”
Jack continues the account: “Our complete project was essentially based on the idea that there were individuals who were prepared to allow a bunch of youthful enthusiasts on to their land freely, to make major decisions that would impact land value
