The richly complex melody of the nightingale is a uncommon sound in England today, but not at the Surrey site. Back in 2020, a lone nightingale could be noticed at this hidden spot in the countryside of Surrey; recently, they were all around. “We were listening to them chirping all night, from several zones,” explains one ecologist, top biologist for the Youngwilders. A group of volunteers were residing temporarily at the location, but the birds were so boisterous, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” remarks a project coordinator. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so cool.” An professional from the regional nature organization came to help them capture and tag one of the nightingales the next morning, the ecologist remembers: “He’d never handled a songbird in his possession before. He was teary.”
Habitat Revival Accelerates at This Location
Nature recovery is by nature a gradual business, but in this place at Maple Farm, after merely a short period, the outcomes are already evident, and noticeable. The farm used to be a haven for animals. Currently it’s a showpiece for the youth-led mission: to accelerate nature recovery, in one of the biodiversity-poor countries in the world, and to connect young people (18-30-year-olds) with a environment they are often denied access to, and a global warming issue they are often unable to stop. Climate change continues, tree clearing destroys wildlife homes, and one more climate conference ends with a unsatisfactory outcome in the host country – so what person could blame young people for wanting to take matters into their own hands?
Our initiative was founded on the notion that there were people willing to allow a bunch of young amateurs on to their property
“The newer cohort is the best educated ecologically that there’s previously,” explains the Youngwilders’ founder, one organizer. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the problems, and have played the minimal role to their creation, and, then, are also going to be affected the greatest as a result.”
Change of the Landscape
Now, the organisation is expanding across the Britain – and Maple Farm was the beginning, in every sense. “It’s our origin point, and where we created our network,” notes Molly Easton, as she offers a walkthrough of the expansive site. “This used to be multiple separate areas,” she states, as we move through long grass featuring shrubs, bordered by forest. “The main visual difference is that we’ve taken out all the barriers, a significant length of it, to create the impression like one area.” In the warmer months, they used protective gear and cleared large amounts of invasive plants, an non-native plant that can burn the flesh. “We’ve established loads of bush lines,” notes Easton. “But the main thing is we’ve just given it space for a brief period. We’ve removed a large part of livestock impact and seen what’s emerged.”
Underbrush and natural fences are a excellent songbird habitat, she comments, but currently they’re cutting back some of the brambles to develop a more variety of ecosystems and to link up separate areas of the site. Young saplings will take much more time to take root, but saplings from the surrounding woodland are already taking root in the meadows; the group have been placing guards to shield them from animals.
Wildlife Reappears in Droves
It’s not just the songbirds – wildlife is reappearing in droves. Lately they’ve seen reptiles, creatures, flyers and invertebrates, says another co-director, as he lifts up one of their survey equipment (such as a mat over a depression in the ground). “You get reptiles and animals hiding under there, but it’s possibly a somewhat chilly for them now.” Organic beehives, made from hollowed-out pieces of wood and buzzing with wild bees, are strapped to some of the plants. The removal of livestock has provided insects space to thrive in the overgrown areas. When they came to this time, comments he, “I’d never seen so many insects. There were just swarms of them. We were wondering, ‘What is going on?’”
Origins of the Movement
The first Youngwilders – Bennett, Jack, Easton and more individuals – came together as youth, focusing on or expressing an passion in nature. In that year, the climate experts was indicating that the target of 1.5C of global heating was appearing impossible, a prominent figure was spearheading the youth protests for environmental action, and activist Clover Hogan was discussing young people suffering from “environmental stress”. It was also the era of Isabella Tree’s book, on rewilding, on how she and her husband changed the Knepp Estate from a struggling agricultural business into a thriving wildlife haven. “We were highly motivated by the example, but what was the part for youth?” asks Easton. “So we created a online presence and called loads of environmental organizations and were asking, ‘Do you sometimes get your property owners seeking to take action and you lack capacity?’”
Durant explains the narrative: “Our whole initiative was fundamentally based on the belief that there were landowners who were prepared to let a collection of young idiots on to their estate without strict rules, to take fairly massive decisions that would change land value
