That beautifully intricate melody of the songbird is a scarce sound in the UK nowadays, but not at Maple Farm. Previously, a lone nightingale could be heard at this hidden location in the countryside of Surrey; lately, they were everywhere. “We were hearing them calling all night, from several zones,” explains Meg Cookson, lead ecologist for the youth rewilding group. A band of volunteers were residing temporarily at the location, yet the birds were so noisy, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” remarks an engagement lead. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so cool.” An specialist from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them net and ring one of the songbirds the next morning, Cookson recalls: “He’d never touched a nightingale in his hands before. He was emotional.”
Ecological Restoration Accelerates at Maple Farm
Ecological restoration is by definition a slow process, but at this site at this property, after just a short period, the results are already visible, and noticeable. The land previously served as a retirement home for horses. Today it’s a example for the Youngwilders’ purpose: to speed up habitat revival, in one of the most nature-depleted countries in the globe, and to link youth (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often denied access to, and a climate crisis they are often ineffectual to prevent. Climate change continues, deforestation destroys natural habitats, and yet another Cop summit draws to a disappointing conclusion in Brazil – so who could criticize the younger generation for wanting to act independently?
Our organisation was founded on the idea that there were landowners ready to let a collection of young idiots on to their land
“The youth is the most knowledgeable ecologically that there’s historically,” says the group's co-director, one organizer. They are also “the deeply concerned in the issues, and have played the least to their causing, and, then, are also going to experience consequences the greatest as a result.”
Change of the Landscape
Today, the group is growing across the UK – and this location started it all, in all respects. “It’s our origin point, and the place we established our connections,” says Molly Easton, as she gives a tour of the 30-acre property. “This used to be six different fields,” she says, as we walk through long grass filled with shrubs, hemmed by forest. “The primary visual change is that we’ve eliminated all the enclosures, a significant length of it, to make it feel like one environment.” In the summer, they wore special clothing and removed large amounts of giant hogweed, an non-native plant that can burn the skin. “We’ve planted numerous of natural barriers,” explains Easton. “But the primary focus is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a little bit. We’ve reduced a significant amount of animal feeding and observed what’s emerged.”
Low scrub and natural fences are a excellent nightingale home, she comments, although today they’re cutting back some of the wild growth to develop a greater range of environments and to connect separate areas of the site. Young saplings will take a while to establish, but saplings from the surrounding oaks are already taking root in the meadows; the crew have been installing protectors to protect them from grazing deer.
Wildlife Comes Back in Large Numbers
It’s not just the nightingales – wildlife is coming back in droves. This year they’ve spotted grass snakes, creatures, bats and insects, notes another co-director, as he raises one of their monitoring tools (similar to a doormat over a depression in the soil). “You discover reptiles and wildlife sheltering under there, but it’s possibly a bit cool for them now.” Organic nests, constructed from empty sections of tree trunk and active with pollinators, are fixed to some of the plants. The absence of livestock has allowed insects opportunity to prosper in the overgrown areas. When they explored this time, says Bennett, “I’d not once observed so countless insects. There were just swarms of them. We were saying, ‘What is going on?’”
Inception of the Movement
The initial Youngwilders – Bennett, Jack, Molly and two others – formed as youth, pursuing or sharing an interest in environmental science. In 2019, the IPCC was predicting that the acceptable threshold of 1.5C of warming was appearing out of reach, a prominent figure was guiding the school strikes for climate movement, and campaigner another voice was discussing young people experiencing “climate anxiety”. It was also the time of a writer's book, on rewilding, on how they changed the a nearby property from a unsuccessful agricultural business into a thriving natural habitat. “We were deeply influenced by the case study, but what was the role for the next generation?” asks Easton. “So we developed a online presence and rang up loads of environmental organizations and were saying, ‘Do you ever get your property owners wanting to take action and you don’t have time?’”
Jack explains the account: “Our whole initiative was basically founded on the notion that there were people who were prepared to permit a group of young amateurs on to their estate indiscriminately, to take significant actions that would impact land value
