The beautifully intricate melody of the nightingale is a uncommon sound in England nowadays, but not at the Surrey site. Back in 2020, a single bird could be heard at this secluded spot in the countryside of Surrey; recently, they were everywhere. “We were hearing them calling all night, from five different territories,” explains one ecologist, chief environmental expert for the youth rewilding group. A team of Youngwilders were camping out at the site, however the birds were so noisy, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” remarks Layla Mapemba. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so cool.” An specialist from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them trap and mark one of the birds the next morning, the ecologist recalls: “He’d never handled a songbird in his care before. He was teary.”
Habitat Revival Progresses at the Surrey Site
Nature recovery is by its very essence a gradual business, but in this place at this property, after only several seasons, the changes are already evident, and audible. The farm previously served as a sanctuary for horses. Currently it’s a model for the youth-led purpose: to hasten nature recovery, in one of the most nature-depleted countries in the planet, and to connect the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often shut out of, and a climate crisis they are often unable to prevent. Global heating advances, tree clearing damages wildlife homes, and yet another international meeting comes to a unsatisfactory outcome in Brazil – so what person could fault youth for choosing to initiate change themselves?
Our organisation was premised on the notion that there were individuals ready to let a bunch of youthful idiots on to their land
“The newer cohort is the most knowledgeable ecologically that there’s ever been,” explains the Youngwilders’ leader, 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 be affected the greatest as a consequence.”
Change of the Landscape
Today, the initiative is taking root across the UK – and the original site planted the seed, in every sense. “It’s where we started, and where we built our community,” notes another co-director, as she offers a walkthrough of the expansive land. “This once consisted of multiple separate areas,” she states, as we stroll through tall vegetation featuring shrubs, hemmed by mature woodland. “The key noticeable change is that we’ve removed all the fencing, 1.2km of it, to make it feel like one environment.” In the warmer months, they wore special clothing and eradicated large amounts of giant hogweed, an non-native plant that can burn the body. “We’ve established loads of natural barriers,” says she. “But the primary focus is we’ve just let it breathe for a brief period. We’ve eliminated a large part of livestock impact and observed what’s sprung up.”
Underbrush and hedgerows are a ideal nightingale habitat, she comments, although today they’re cutting back some of the thorny plants to create a greater diversity of environments and to link up separate areas of the site. Young saplings will take a while to establish, but saplings from the adjacent trees are already growing in the fields; the crew have been installing barriers to safeguard them from wildlife.
Wildlife Comes Back in Abundance
It’s not just the nightingales – fauna is returning in large numbers. Lately they’ve spotted serpents, legless lizards, nocturnal mammals and insects, explains another co-director, as he lifts up one of their survey equipment (similar to a mat over a small hollow in the earth). “You get snakes and wildlife residing under there, but it’s possibly a slightly chilly for them now.” Organic nests, built using empty parts of timber and humming with pollinators, are fixed to some of the woodland. The absence of animals has provided small creatures opportunity to flourish in the overgrown areas. When they visited this season, says he, “I’d not ever encountered so many butterflies. There were just clouds of them. We were wondering, ‘What is going on?’”
Inception of the Project
The original Youngwilders – Bennett, Durant, Molly and more individuals – came together as youth, focusing on or sharing an passion in nature. In the recent past, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was forecasting that the target of one and a half degrees of global heating was seeming unachievable, Greta Thunberg was spearheading the demonstrations for eco-awareness, and advocate a speaker was talking about youth feeling “eco-worry”. It was also the time of the author's work, about nature recovery, on how they transformed the a nearby property from a failing agricultural business into a thriving natural habitat. “We were highly motivated by the example, but what could be the role for youth?” questions Easton. “So we made a platform and called many of conservation groups and were saying, ‘Do you occasionally get your estate holders wanting to do something and you lack resources?’”
Jack continues the account: “Our complete initiative was basically based on the notion that there were people who were ready to permit a group of young amateurs on to their property indiscriminately, to take significant decisions that would affect land value
