That beautifully intricate call of the nightingale is a scarce sound in Britain today, but not at this rural location. Four years ago, a solitary bird could be noticed at this remote location in the countryside of Surrey; recently, they were everywhere. “We were hearing them singing all night, from five different territories,” explains Meg Cookson, top biologist for the youth rewilding group. A band of Youngwilders were staying overnight at the site, however the birds were so loud, “we stayed awake all night,” comments Layla Mapemba. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so incredible.” An professional from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them capture and tag one of the birds the next morning, she states: “He’d never held a nightingale in his possession before. He was crying.”
Habitat Revival Accelerates at Maple Farm
Nature recovery is by definition a slow process, but at this site at Maple Farm, after only several seasons, the changes are already evident, and audible. The land was once a haven for animals. Now it’s a model for the Youngwilders’ mission: to hasten nature recovery, in one of the biodiversity-poor regions in the globe, and to link young people (18-30-year-olds) with a environment they are often shut out of, and a climate crisis they are often unable to halt. Rising temperatures continues, habitat loss destroys natural habitats, and one more international meeting comes to a unsatisfactory outcome in Brazil – so what person could blame youth for choosing to initiate change themselves?
Our organisation was founded on the notion that there were individuals ready to permit a group of young idiots on to their property
“The youth is the most knowledgeable ecologically that there’s previously,” says the group's leader, Jack Durant. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the challenges, and have played the least to their creation, and, then, are also going to experience consequences most as a outcome.”
Change of the Landscape
Currently, the group is taking root across the UK – and Maple Farm was the beginning, in every sense. “It’s the initial project, and the place we built our community,” explains Molly Easton, as she gives a tour of the 12-hectare land. “This was previously divided plots,” she says, as we walk through tall vegetation dotted with low scrub, surrounded by forest. “The main visible transformation is that we’ve taken out all the fencing, over a kilometer of it, to create the impression like a unified environment.” In the recent season, they wore hazmat suits and eradicated significant quantities of invasive plants, an aggressive flora that can harm the skin. “We’ve introduced loads of hedgerows,” says the director. “But the main thing is we’ve just let it breathe for a brief period. We’ve reduced a lot of grazing pressure and seen what’s sprung up.”
Low scrub and hedgerows are a ideal nightingale environment, she says, but now they’re trimming some of the wild growth to develop a greater diversity of environments and to join two parts of the property. Fresh plantings will take a while to establish, but saplings from the adjacent oaks are already taking root in the open areas; the team have been setting up barriers to protect them from wildlife.
Nature Comes Back in Large Numbers
There's more than the nightingales – fauna is coming back in droves. Recently they’ve observed serpents, creatures, bats and invertebrates, notes another co-director, as he lifts up one of their reptile mats (similar to a cover over a depression in the ground). “You discover reptiles and animals sheltering under there, but it’s possibly a slightly cool for them now.” Wild nests, constructed from carved parts of wood and buzzing with insects, are attached to some of the trees. The removal of grazing horses has given small creatures opportunity to flourish in the meadows. When they explored this time, says the director, “I’d not ever encountered so numerous butterflies. There were just masses of them. We were saying, ‘What is going on?’”
Inception of the Project
The original Youngwilders – Noah, Durant, Easton and more individuals – formed as youth, pursuing or expressing an concern in nature. In that year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was indicating that the target of one and a half degrees of climate change was looking out of reach, the activist was leading the youth protests for eco-awareness, and advocate Clover Hogan was discussing youth suffering from “climate anxiety”. It was also the time of the author's publication, on rewilding, on how they revitalized the a Sussex location from a unsuccessful dairy farm into a thriving ecosystem. “We were deeply influenced by the example, but what was the role for the next generation?” says Easton. “So we made a website and contacted numerous of environmental organizations and were like, ‘Do you sometimes get your landowners wishing to take action and you don’t have capacity?’”
Jack continues the story: “Our whole organisation was essentially premised on the belief that there were individuals who were willing to allow a group of young idiots on to their property freely, to make major choices that would affect land value
