The richly complex melody of the nightingale is a rare sound in Britain these days, but it's different at the Surrey site. Back in 2020, a solitary nightingale could be noticed at this hidden location in rural Surrey; lately, they were everywhere. “We were listening to them chirping all night, from multiple areas,” says Meg Cookson, lead ecologist for the eco-activist organization. A band of volunteers were staying overnight at the location, yet the birds were so boisterous, “we were unable to rest all night,” says Layla Mapemba. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so incredible.” An professional from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them net and ring one of the birds the next morning, she recalls: “He’d never handled a songbird in his hands before. He was teary.”
Ecological restoration is by definition a gradual endeavor, but here at the farm, after merely a short period, the outcomes are already visible, and audible. The farm previously served as a sanctuary for animals. Currently it’s a model for the youth-led mission: to accelerate ecological restoration, in one of the most nature-depleted nations in the globe, and to engage youth (18-30-year-olds) with a environment they are often shut out of, and a environmental emergency they are often unable to halt. Global heating advances, habitat loss eliminates natural habitats, and one more Cop summit ends with a frustrating end in the host country – so who could criticize youth for wishing to take matters into their own hands?
Our organisation was based on the notion that there were people willing to allow a bunch of youthful amateurs on to their estate
“The younger generation is the best educated environmentally that there’s previously,” explains the Youngwilders’ leader, Jack Durant. They are also “the deeply concerned in the challenges, and have played the smallest part to their origin, and, then, are also going to suffer the greatest as a consequence.”
Now, the group is taking root across the UK – and the original site was the beginning, in all respects. “It’s the initial project, and where we built our community,” explains another co-director, as she provides a tour of the 12-hectare property. “This used to be divided plots,” she says, as we stroll through long grass dotted with shrubs, surrounded by forest. “The main visible difference is that we’ve removed all the fencing, a significant length of it, to create the impression like a single landscape.” In the recent season, they wore protective gear and removed significant quantities of invasive plants, an non-native plant that can irritate the body. “We’ve introduced loads of hedgerows,” says she. “But the main thing is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a brief period. We’ve removed a large part of livestock impact and noticed what’s come up.”
Underbrush and shrub lines are a perfect nightingale environment, she explains, however currently they’re managing some of the thorny plants to establish a more diversity of environments and to join different sections of the site. Young saplings will take considerably longer to establish, but young trees from the adjacent oaks are already taking root in the open areas; the team have been setting up protectors to safeguard them from grazing deer.
There's more than the nightingales – wildlife is returning in droves. Recently they’ve spotted serpents, creatures, bats and invertebrates, explains Noah Bennett, as he raises one of their monitoring tools (such as a cover over a depression in the soil). “You get snakes and animals residing under there, but it’s probably a bit chilly for them now.” Organic nests, made from hollowed-out parts of tree trunk and active with insects, are fixed to some of the woodland. The absence of grazing horses has allowed insects room to flourish in the meadows. When they explored this summer, comments the director, “I’d not once encountered so numerous lepidoptera. There were just masses of them. We were wondering, ‘What is going on?’”
The original founders – Noah, Jack, Molly and more individuals – united as learners, focusing on or having an passion in ecology. In the recent past, the climate experts was predicting that the safe limit of 1.5C of warming was looking out of reach, Greta Thunberg was guiding the demonstrations for climate movement, and activist Clover Hogan was discussing young people suffering from “climate anxiety”. It was also the time of the author's work, on rewilding, on how they transformed the a Sussex location from a unsuccessful agricultural business into a thriving ecosystem. “We were super-inspired by the example, but what was the part for young people?” asks Easton. “So we made a website and contacted loads of wildlife trusts and were saying, ‘Do you sometimes get your property owners wishing to make changes and you don’t have resources?’”
Jack adds the narrative: “Our complete initiative was fundamentally premised on the belief that there were individuals who were prepared to allow a collection of youthful amateurs on to their property indiscriminately, to decide on fairly massive actions that would impact land value
Maya Chen is a seasoned tech journalist and software developer with over a decade of experience in digital innovation and cybersecurity.
