The beautifully intricate call of the songbird is a rare sound in the UK nowadays, but it's different at the Surrey site. Previously, a single bird could be detected at this hidden place in the countryside of Surrey; this summer, they were all around. “We were hearing them chirping all night, from five different territories,” notes Meg Cookson, lead ecologist for the youth rewilding group. A group of participants were residing temporarily at the property, yet the nightingales 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 professional from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them capture and tag one of the songbirds the next morning, she remembers: “He’d never touched a songbird in his possession before. He was teary.”
Rewilding Progresses at This Location
Rewilding is by its very essence a lengthy process, but here at the farm, after only four years, the outcomes are already evident, and noticeable. The farm previously served as a retirement home for horses. Currently it’s a example for the youth-led purpose: to accelerate ecological restoration, in one of the biodiversity-poor countries in the planet, and to engage young people (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often shut out of, and a global warming issue they are often ineffectual to prevent. Global heating advances, deforestation damages wildlife homes, and one more Cop summit ends with a frustrating outcome in Brazil – so what person could fault youth for choosing to take matters into their own hands?
The organisation was based on the notion that there were people prepared to let a bunch of young amateurs on to their estate
“The youth is the most informed environmentally that there’s ever been,” says the Youngwilders’ leader, one organizer. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the issues, and have contributed the least to their causing, and, then, are also going to suffer most as a result.”
Transformation of the Property
Currently, the organisation is growing across the UK – and Maple Farm planted the seed, in multiple ways. “It’s where we started, and the place we built our community,” explains Molly Easton, as she offers a overview of the expansive land. “This once consisted of multiple separate areas,” she comments, as we walk through tall vegetation dotted with low scrub, bordered by established trees. “The primary visible transformation is that we’ve removed all the fencing, over a kilometer of it, to create the impression like a single landscape.” In the summer, they used hazmat suits and eradicated masses of invasive plants, an invasive species that can irritate the flesh. “We’ve introduced numerous of bush lines,” says she. “But the key action is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a little bit. We’ve reduced a large part of livestock impact and seen what’s come up.”
Bushes and hedgerows are a ideal nightingale home, she comments, but now they’re trimming some of the thorny plants to establish a greater diversity of environments and to connect different sections of the site. Fresh plantings will take much more time to take root, but new growth from the surrounding trees are already establishing themselves in the meadows; the crew have been placing guards to protect them from grazing deer.
Wildlife Returns in Droves
It’s not just the songbirds – fauna is returning in droves. This year they’ve seen serpents, legless lizards, flyers and bugs, notes a team member, as he lifts up one of their survey equipment (like a doormat over a depression in the ground). “You find snakes and wildlife sheltering under there, but it’s likely a somewhat chilly for them now.” Wild beehives, constructed from carved pieces of wood and buzzing with wild bees, are attached to some of the woodland. The removal of animals has provided small creatures opportunity to thrive in the long grass. When they visited this season, says the director, “I’d not once seen so numerous insects. There were just clouds of them. We were wondering, ‘What is going on?’”
Origins of the Movement
The initial founders – Noah, Durant, Easton and more individuals – came together as students, pursuing or sharing an interest in environmental science. In 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was forecasting that the target of one and a half degrees of climate change was looking unachievable, the activist was leading the demonstrations for eco-awareness, and campaigner Clover Hogan was talking about young people experiencing “climate anxiety”. It was also the time of a writer's publication, Wilding, on how they changed the Knepp Estate from a struggling dairy farm into a successful wildlife haven. “We were super-inspired by the example, but what was the role for the next generation?” says Molly. “So we developed a platform and rang up numerous of conservation groups and were saying, ‘Do you ever get your landowners seeking to make changes and you are short on resources?’”
Durant continues the narrative: “Our whole organisation was essentially founded on the notion that there were people who were ready to permit a group of youthful idiots on to their estate indiscriminately, to take fairly massive choices that would impact land value
