That manically melodic melody of the songbird is a rare sound in the UK today, yet it's different at this rural location. Four years ago, a solitary bird could be detected at this remote place in rural Surrey; lately, they were in multiple locations. “We were hearing them singing all night, from several zones,” explains one ecologist, chief environmental expert for the youth rewilding group. A group of participants were residing temporarily at the property, however the birds were so loud, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” says a project coordinator. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so amazing.” An specialist from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them capture and tag one of the songbirds the next morning, the ecologist remembers: “He’d never handled a songbird in his hands before. He was crying.”
Habitat Revival Speeds Up at This Location
Rewilding is by nature a slow process, but here at this property, after just four years, the changes are already apparent, and noticeable. The property was once a haven for equines. Now it’s a model for the Youngwilders’ mission: to speed up nature recovery, in one of the biodiversity-poor regions in the planet, and to connect young people (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often shut out of, and a climate crisis they are often ineffectual to prevent. Rising temperatures continues, deforestation damages natural habitats, and yet another Cop summit ends with a unsatisfactory end in the host country – so what person could criticize youth for wishing to act independently?
Our project was based on the idea that there were individuals prepared to allow a collection of youthful amateurs on to their land
“The younger generation is the most knowledgeable ecologically that there’s previously,” states the Youngwilders’ co-director, Jack Durant. They are also “the highly invested in the issues, and have contributed the minimal role to their causing, and, then, are also going to be affected the worst as a result.”
Change of the Property
Now, the group is growing across the United Kingdom – and Maple Farm planted the seed, in every sense. “It’s the initial project, and where we established our connections,” notes another co-director, as she gives a walkthrough of the 12-hectare property. “This once consisted of multiple separate areas,” she says, as we move through long grass featuring shrubs, surrounded by mature woodland. “The key noticeable change is that we’ve eliminated all the enclosures, over a kilometer of it, to give the sense like a unified environment.” In the summer, they wore hazmat suits and removed masses of giant hogweed, an invasive species that can burn the body. “We’ve planted many of bush lines,” says she. “But the main thing is we’ve just let it breathe for a little bit. We’ve eliminated a lot of grazing pressure and observed what’s emerged.”
Underbrush and shrub lines are a excellent nightingale environment, she explains, but now they’re managing some of the brambles to establish a greater diversity of ecosystems and to link up different sections of the site. Fresh plantings will take much more time to take root, but young trees from the adjacent oaks are already establishing themselves in the open areas; the group have been setting up barriers to safeguard them from grazing deer.
Nature Reappears in Abundance
In addition to the songbirds – animals is reappearing in abundance. This year they’ve observed grass snakes, creatures, flyers and insects, notes another co-director, as he uncovers one of their monitoring tools (such as a mat over a depression in the ground). “You discover snakes and animals hiding under there, but it’s likely a bit cool for them now.” Organic homes, made from carved pieces of tree trunk and humming with pollinators, are fixed to some of the plants. The removal of livestock has provided small creatures space to thrive in the overgrown areas. When they came to this season, says the director, “I’d never observed so many insects. There were just swarms of them. We were like, ‘What is happening?’”
Inception of the Project
The original Youngwilders – Noah, Durant, Molly and two others – united as youth, studying or having an concern in environmental science. In 2019, the climate experts was predicting that the safe limit of 1.5C of climate change was appearing impossible, Greta Thunberg was guiding the youth protests for climate movement, and activist another voice was discussing youth suffering from “environmental stress”. It was also the time of a writer's book, Wilding, on how the authors revitalized the Knepp Estate from a failing dairy farm into a successful natural habitat. “We were super-inspired by the Knepp story, but what was the function for young people?” asks Easton. “So we developed a website and rang up loads of conservation groups and were saying, ‘Do you ever get your property owners seeking to make changes and you don’t have capacity?’”
Jack adds the narrative: “Our whole organisation was essentially premised on the idea that there were people who were ready to allow a group of youthful idiots on to their estate without strict rules, to decide on fairly massive actions that would impact land value
