The beautifully intricate song of the nightingale is a uncommon presence in the UK today, yet it's different at this rural location. Previously, a single bird could be heard at this remote spot in rural Surrey; recently, they were everywhere. “We were hearing them calling all night, from five different territories,” explains Meg Cookson, chief environmental expert for the youth rewilding group. A team of participants were staying overnight at the property, yet the nightingales were so noisy, “we were unable to rest all night,” comments a project coordinator. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so incredible.” An expert from the regional nature organization came to help them net and ring one of the songbirds the next morning, the ecologist states: “He’d never held a nightingale in his care before. He was crying.”
Rewilding Progresses at This Location
Rewilding is by definition a gradual business, but here at Maple Farm, after only several seasons, the changes are already evident, and hearable. The farm previously served as a retirement home for equines. Now it’s a model for the youth-led mission: to accelerate ecological restoration, in one of the most nature-depleted regions in the planet, and to link youth (18-30-year-olds) with a environment they are often excluded from, and a climate crisis they are often unable to prevent. Climate change continues, habitat loss eliminates ecosystems, and yet another Cop summit comes to a unsatisfactory outcome in abroad – so what person could criticize young people for wishing to act independently?
Our project was founded on the belief that there were landowners ready to allow a group of young enthusiasts on to their estate
“The youth is the most informed ecologically that there’s previously,” says the Youngwilders’ leader, one organizer. They are also “the deeply concerned in the issues, and have added the smallest part to their origin, and, then, are also going to suffer the greatest as a consequence.”
Change of the Landscape
Today, the organisation is expanding across the Britain – and this location started it all, in all respects. “It’s our origin point, and the place we created our connections,” notes Molly Easton, as she offers a tour of the 12-hectare property. “This used to be six different fields,” she says, as we stroll through tall vegetation featuring shrubs, hemmed by established trees. “The main visible difference is that we’ve eliminated all the enclosures, over a kilometer of it, to create the impression like one landscape.” In the recent season, they wore special clothing and cleared large amounts of giant hogweed, an non-native plant that can irritate the skin. “We’ve established loads of bush lines,” explains she. “But the main thing is we’ve just let it breathe for a brief period. We’ve eliminated a significant amount of animal feeding and seen what’s come up.”
Underbrush and natural fences are a perfect songbird habitat, she comments, although currently they’re trimming some of the thorny plants to create a greater diversity of ecosystems and to connect different sections of the property. Fresh plantings will take much more time to take root, but saplings from the adjacent trees are already taking root in the meadows; the team have been placing barriers to shield them from wildlife.
Nature Reappears in Droves
It’s not just the nightingales – animals is reappearing in large numbers. This year they’ve seen reptiles, slowworms, nocturnal mammals and bugs, explains Noah Bennett, as he lifts up one of their monitoring tools (like a mat over a small hollow in the ground). “You find snakes and animals sheltering under there, but it’s likely a slightly cool for them now.” Wild beehives, made from hollowed-out pieces of wood and buzzing with wild bees, are strapped to some of the trees. The absence of grazing horses has given small creatures space to thrive in the meadows. When they explored this summer, states Bennett, “I’d not once observed so countless lepidoptera. There were just masses of them. We were saying, ‘What is going on?’”
Beginnings of the Initiative
The original participants – Noah, Jack, Molly and more individuals – united as learners, pursuing or having an concern in ecology. In that year, the IPCC was predicting that the safe limit of one and a half degrees of warming was looking unachievable, Greta Thunberg was spearheading the youth protests for eco-awareness, and activist a speaker was discussing youth feeling “climate anxiety”. It was also the period of the author's book, on rewilding, on how she and her husband revitalized the a nearby property from a unsuccessful dairy farm into a thriving wildlife haven. “We were super-inspired by the Knepp story, but what could be the part for the next generation?” says Molly. “So we made a online presence and rang up loads of environmental organizations and were saying, ‘Do you sometimes get your property owners seeking to make changes and you don’t have capacity?’”
Jack explains the story: “Our whole organisation was essentially premised on the notion that there were individuals who were willing to permit a bunch of young enthusiasts on to their land freely, to make significant choices that would change land value
