That beautifully intricate song of the nightingale is a uncommon sound in the UK today, however it's different at the Surrey site. Previously, a single bird could be noticed at this remote spot in rural Surrey; lately, they were everywhere. “We were listening to them chirping all night, from five different territories,” says one ecologist, lead ecologist for the Youngwilders. A band of participants were camping out at the property, however the birds were so loud, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” remarks a project coordinator. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so amazing.” An expert from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them trap and mark one of the nightingales the next morning, the ecologist recalls: “He’d never touched a nightingale in his possession before. He was crying.”
Rewilding Progresses at This Location
Rewilding is by its very essence a slow endeavor, but here at the farm, after just four years, the outcomes are already apparent, and hearable. The land was once a haven for horses. Now it’s a model for the Youngwilders’ mission: to speed up nature recovery, in one of the biodiversity-poor regions in the world, and to connect youth (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often shut out of, and a environmental emergency they are often ineffectual to prevent. Global heating continues, deforestation destroys ecosystems, and yet another Cop summit comes to a disappointing end in Brazil – so who could blame the younger generation for wanting to initiate change themselves?
Our organisation was premised on the idea that there were landowners willing to allow a group of youthful idiots on to their land
“The youth is the most knowledgeable environmentally that there’s previously,” states the group's leader, a key figure. They are also “the highly invested in the problems, and have played the smallest part to their origin, and, then, are also going to suffer the greatest as a result.”
Transformation of the Landscape
Currently, the group is taking root across the United Kingdom – and this location started it all, in every sense. “It’s our origin point, and the place we created our connections,” notes a founding member, as she gives a tour of the expansive property. “This used to be multiple separate areas,” she comments, as we walk through overgrown meadows featuring bushes, bordered by mature woodland. “The main noticeable change is that we’ve removed all the fencing, a significant length of it, to give the sense like a unified environment.” In the warmer months, they donned special clothing and cleared significant quantities of harmful weeds, an aggressive flora that can irritate the skin. “We’ve established loads of natural barriers,” notes she. “But the main thing is we’ve just let it breathe for a little bit. We’ve removed a large part of grazing pressure and observed what’s sprung up.”
Bushes and shrub lines are a excellent songbird habitat, she explains, however today they’re managing some of the thorny plants to develop a more diversity of habitats and to connect separate areas of the land. Young saplings will take considerably longer to establish, but young trees from the nearby woodland are already establishing themselves in the meadows; the team have been placing barriers to safeguard them from animals.
Wildlife Returns in Large Numbers
In addition to the nightingales – wildlife is returning in droves. This year they’ve seen grass snakes, legless lizards, flyers and bugs, notes a team member, as he uncovers one of their survey equipment (similar to a cover over a depression in the soil). “You discover reptiles and things sheltering under there, but it’s probably a somewhat cold for them now.” Natural homes, constructed from carved sections of tree trunk and buzzing with insects, are attached to some of the trees. The lack of animals has given invertebrates room to thrive in the long grass. When they visited this summer, says Bennett, “I’d not once seen so many butterflies. There were just masses of them. We were like, ‘What is going on?’”
Origins of the Project
The initial Youngwilders – Noah, Jack, Molly and more individuals – came together as youth, studying or sharing an interest in nature. In the recent past, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was indicating that the safe limit of one and a half degrees of climate change was looking out of reach, a prominent figure was guiding the school strikes for environmental action, and campaigner another voice was talking about young people suffering from “environmental stress”. It was also the period of the author's work, about nature recovery, on how she and her husband changed the a Sussex location from a failing farm into a thriving ecosystem. “We were deeply influenced by the Knepp story, but what could be the role for youth?” asks Molly. “So we created a website and called many of environmental organizations and were saying, ‘Do you ever get your property owners seeking to make changes and you are short on time?’”
Jack adds the narrative: “Our entire project was basically premised on the belief that there were individuals who were prepared to let a group of youthful amateurs on to their estate freely, to decide on fairly massive choices that would impact land value
