That beautifully intricate song of the songbird is a scarce occurrence in Britain these days, yet not at this rural location. Previously, a lone nightingale could be heard at this remote location in rural Surrey; this summer, they were everywhere. “We were listening to them calling all night, from several zones,” explains one ecologist, chief environmental expert for the Youngwilders. A team of Youngwilders were staying overnight at the location, but the nightingales were so noisy, “we were unable to rest all night,” remarks a project coordinator. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so incredible.” An professional from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them trap and mark one of the nightingales the next morning, the ecologist remembers: “He’d never handled a songbird in his possession before. He was teary.”
Ecological Restoration Progresses at the Surrey Site
Ecological restoration is by definition a lengthy endeavor, but at this site at Maple Farm, after only several seasons, the outcomes are already apparent, and hearable. The farm was once a retirement home for equines. Today it’s a model for the youth-led mission: to accelerate ecological restoration, in one of the biodiversity-poor regions in the world, and to connect 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. Global heating persists, deforestation eliminates natural habitats, and another international meeting comes to a disappointing end in the host country – so who could blame the younger generation for wishing to initiate change themselves?
Our organisation was founded on the idea that there were people ready to let a bunch of youthful amateurs on to their property
“The youth is the best educated environmentally that there’s historically,” states the group's founder, one organizer. They are also “the deeply concerned in the challenges, and have played the smallest part to their causing, and, then, are also going to suffer the worst as a result.”
Change of the Landscape
Now, the group is expanding across the UK – and this location started it all, in multiple ways. “It’s the initial project, and the place we established our network,” notes a founding member, as she gives a overview of the expansive property. “This was previously six different fields,” she comments, as we stroll through long grass filled with low scrub, surrounded by forest. “The main visible difference is that we’ve eliminated all the fencing, a significant length of it, to give the sense like a single environment.” In the summer, they wore hazmat suits and removed significant quantities of giant hogweed, an non-native plant that can irritate the flesh. “We’ve introduced many of natural barriers,” notes the director. “But the key action is we’ve just let it breathe for a short time. We’ve removed a large part of animal feeding and observed what’s sprung up.”
Underbrush and shrub lines are a ideal songbird home, she comments, however today they’re trimming some of the wild growth to create a more variety of ecosystems and to join separate areas of the property. New trees will take considerably longer to grow, but young trees from the surrounding trees are already growing in the open areas; the crew have been placing barriers to safeguard them from animals.
Animals Reappears in Large Numbers
There's more than the nightingales – fauna is reappearing in droves. Lately they’ve seen reptiles, legless lizards, nocturnal mammals and invertebrates, says a team member, as he lifts up one of their reptile mats (such as a cover over a depression in the soil). “You discover snakes and things sheltering under there, but it’s probably a somewhat cold for them now.” Organic nests, built using empty pieces of timber and active with pollinators, are attached to some of the plants. The absence of grazing horses has given small creatures opportunity to thrive in the overgrown areas. When they explored this season, comments the director, “I’d never observed so countless lepidoptera. There were just clouds of them. We were like, ‘What is happening?’”
Beginnings of the Movement
The initial participants – Bennett, Jack, Molly and additional members – formed as students, pursuing or sharing an interest in nature. In 2019, the climate experts was forecasting that the target of one and a half degrees of warming was appearing unachievable, the activist was guiding the demonstrations for eco-awareness, and advocate another voice was discussing the generation suffering from “climate anxiety”. It was also the era of the author's book, Wilding, on how they transformed the Knepp Estate from a struggling dairy farm into a thriving natural habitat. “We were deeply influenced by the example, but what was the role for youth?” questions Molly. “So we made a platform and rang up loads of wildlife trusts and were saying, ‘Do you sometimes get your estate holders wanting to make changes and you are short on resources?’”
Jack adds the story: “Our complete initiative was fundamentally based on the idea that there were landowners who were willing to let a group of youthful idiots on to their land without strict rules, to decide on fairly massive choices that would change land value
