The richly complex call of the songbird is a scarce occurrence in England these days, yet it's different at the Surrey site. Four years ago, a lone nightingale could be detected at this secluded location in the countryside of Surrey; recently, they were in multiple locations. “We were hearing them calling all night, from five different territories,” says Meg Cookson, top biologist for the Youngwilders. A group of Youngwilders were residing temporarily at the property, but the nightingales were so loud, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” says an engagement lead. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so incredible.” An specialist from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them trap and mark one of the nightingales the next morning, she remembers: “He’d never handled a songbird in his care before. He was crying.”
Rewilding Accelerates at the Surrey Site
Rewilding is by its very essence a lengthy business, but in this place at the farm, after merely four years, the changes are already evident, and hearable. The property was once a haven for horses. Now it’s a model for the Youngwilders’ mission: to speed up habitat revival, in one of the ecologically impoverished countries in the planet, and to engage the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often excluded from, and a global warming issue they are often unable to stop. Rising temperatures persists, tree clearing destroys ecosystems, and one more Cop summit comes to a disappointing end in Brazil – so what person could fault the younger generation for wishing to take matters into their own hands?
Our project was based on the notion that there were landowners willing to permit a bunch of young idiots on to their property
“The newer cohort is the most knowledgeable in terms of nature that there’s previously,” states the group's leader, a key figure. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the issues, and have contributed the smallest part to their creation, and, then, are also going to suffer the worst as a outcome.”
Revitalization of the Landscape
Today, the organisation is taking root across the United Kingdom – and this location started it all, in every sense. “It’s where we started, and where we established our community,” says another co-director, as she gives a walkthrough of the 30-acre property. “This used to be six different fields,” she says, as we move through long grass featuring bushes, bordered by established trees. “The main visible change is that we’ve taken out all the fencing, a significant length of it, to give the sense like one environment.” In the summer, they wore hazmat suits and removed large amounts of giant hogweed, an non-native plant that can harm the flesh. “We’ve established numerous of bush lines,” notes Easton. “But the main thing is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a brief period. We’ve removed a significant amount of grazing pressure and noticed what’s come up.”
Underbrush and natural fences are a ideal nightingale environment, she comments, although now they’re cutting back some of the thorny plants to develop a more variety of ecosystems and to join two parts of the property. New trees will take considerably longer to grow, but new growth from the adjacent trees are already establishing themselves in the meadows; the team have been setting up guards to safeguard them from grazing deer.
Wildlife Returns in Abundance
It’s not just the songbirds – fauna is coming back in abundance. Recently they’ve spotted grass snakes, legless lizards, flyers and insects, notes a team member, as he raises one of their reptile mats (like a cover over a depression in the earth). “You find snakes and animals sheltering under there, but it’s possibly a slightly cold for them now.” Organic beehives, built using empty pieces of wood and active with pollinators, are fixed to some of the plants. The removal of livestock has provided invertebrates room to flourish in the long grass. When they explored this season, says Bennett, “I’d not ever observed so many butterflies. There were just clouds of them. We were like, ‘What is going on?’”
Inception of the Initiative
The initial Youngwilders – Noah, Jack, Molly and additional members – came together as youth, studying or having an passion in ecology. In 2019, the IPCC was forecasting that the target of 1.5C of warming was looking unachievable, a prominent figure was guiding the school strikes for environmental action, and activist a speaker was addressing the generation feeling “environmental stress”. It was also the time of Isabella Tree’s book, Wilding, on how the authors revitalized the Knepp Estate from a failing farm into a successful ecosystem. “We were highly motivated by the case study, but what could be the role for youth?” asks Molly. “So we created a online presence and contacted numerous of wildlife trusts and were saying, ‘Do you ever get your property owners seeking to take action and you don’t have time?’”
Jack explains the narrative: “Our complete initiative was fundamentally based on the idea that there were people who were willing to let a bunch of youthful idiots on to their estate without strict rules, to make major actions that would impact land value
