The manically melodic song of the songbird is a scarce sound in Britain today, but it's different at the Surrey site. Previously, a solitary nightingale could be noticed at this secluded location in the countryside of Surrey; recently, they were everywhere. “We were hearing them chirping all night, from multiple areas,” says Meg Cookson, lead ecologist for the youth rewilding group. A group of volunteers were residing temporarily at the site, but the birds were so noisy, “we stayed awake all night,” says a project coordinator. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so incredible.” An specialist from the local conservation group came to help them capture and tag one of the birds the next morning, the ecologist remembers: “He’d never touched a songbird in his possession before. He was emotional.”
Habitat Revival Progresses at the Surrey Site
Ecological restoration is by its very essence a gradual process, but at this site at the farm, after merely four years, the results are already visible, and noticeable. The farm previously served as a sanctuary for horses. Now it’s a model for the Youngwilders’ purpose: to accelerate habitat revival, in one of the biodiversity-poor regions in the globe, and to engage the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often denied access to, and a climate crisis they are often powerless to prevent. Climate change continues, habitat loss destroys wildlife homes, and one more Cop summit ends with a unsatisfactory conclusion in abroad – so who could criticize the younger generation for wishing to take matters into their own hands?
The project was premised on the notion that there were people willing to let a bunch of young enthusiasts on to their estate
“The youth is the best educated in terms of nature that there’s historically,” explains the Youngwilders’ co-director, one organizer. They are also “the highly invested in the problems, and have added the smallest part to their creation, and, then, are also going to be affected the greatest as a outcome.”
Revitalization of the Site
Currently, the group is taking root across the Britain – and this location planted the seed, in multiple ways. “It’s where we started, and where we created our network,” notes a founding member, as she offers a tour of the expansive site. “This used to be divided plots,” she says, as we walk through overgrown meadows filled with shrubs, surrounded by forest. “The primary visible transformation is that we’ve removed all the barriers, 1.2km of it, to give the sense like one area.” In the warmer months, they used hazmat suits and cleared large amounts of harmful weeds, an invasive species that can burn the body. “We’ve established loads of natural barriers,” notes Easton. “But the key action is we’ve just given it space for a little bit. We’ve removed a lot of livestock impact and seen what’s come up.”
Low scrub and natural fences are a perfect nightingale environment, she comments, but today they’re cutting back some of the brambles to create a greater variety of ecosystems and to link up separate areas of the property. Fresh plantings will take a while to grow, but saplings from the adjacent oaks are already establishing themselves in the fields; the crew have been setting up guards to shield them from grazing deer.
Wildlife Reappears in Abundance
In addition to the songbirds – wildlife is returning in large numbers. Recently they’ve seen serpents, slowworms, flyers and invertebrates, notes another co-director, as he uncovers one of their survey equipment (such as a mat over a indentation in the earth). “You get reptiles and things hiding under there, but it’s possibly a bit cool for them now.” Organic beehives, made from carved parts of timber and humming with insects, are attached to some of the woodland. The removal of livestock has allowed small creatures space to flourish in the long grass. When they explored this time, comments he, “I’d not once encountered so numerous butterflies. There were just clouds of them. We were wondering, ‘What is occurring?’”
Origins of the Initiative
The first Youngwilders – Bennett, Durant, Molly and additional members – came together as students, focusing on or expressing an concern in nature. In 2019, the climate experts was predicting that the acceptable threshold of 1.5C of warming was looking unachievable, the activist was leading the youth protests for environmental action, and campaigner Clover Hogan was addressing young people feeling “eco-worry”. It was also the time of Isabella Tree’s publication, Wilding, on how they changed the a nearby property from a failing agricultural business into a successful ecosystem. “We were highly motivated by the Knepp story, but what was the role for the next generation?” says Easton. “So we created a platform and rang up many of environmental organizations and were like, ‘Do you ever get your property owners seeking to do something and you are short on resources?’”
Durant adds the narrative: “Our complete project was essentially founded on the idea that there were individuals who were ready to allow a collection of youthful amateurs on to their land indiscriminately, to make fairly massive decisions that would affect land value
