The beautifully intricate call of the songbird is a uncommon sound in Britain nowadays, yet it's different at this rural location. Back in 2020, a solitary nightingale could be heard at this secluded spot in the countryside of Surrey; recently, they were all around. “We were hearing them chirping all night, from several zones,” notes Meg Cookson, top biologist for the youth rewilding group. A band of Youngwilders were residing temporarily at the property, but the nightingales were so loud, “we were unable to rest all night,” says Layla Mapemba. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so cool.” An expert from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them net and ring one of the birds the next morning, the ecologist remembers: “He’d never touched a songbird in his possession before. He was emotional.”
Rewilding Progresses at the Surrey Site
Ecological restoration is by definition a slow process, but here at this property, after only four years, the changes are already visible, and audible. The land previously served as a retirement home for equines. Today it’s a model for the youth-led goal: to speed up ecological restoration, in one of the most nature-depleted nations in the globe, and to link young people (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often excluded from, and a global warming issue they are often powerless to prevent. Climate change persists, habitat loss eliminates natural habitats, and one more climate conference ends with a disappointing conclusion in Brazil – so what person could blame youth for choosing to act independently?
The project was based on the notion that there were people prepared to allow a collection of young idiots on to their land
“The newer cohort is the most informed in terms of nature that there’s ever been,” states the Youngwilders’ founder, a key figure. They are also “the highly invested in the problems, and have played the minimal role to their causing, and, then, are also going to experience consequences the greatest as a consequence.”
Transformation of the Landscape
Today, the organisation is growing across the United Kingdom – and this location was the beginning, in all respects. “It’s our origin point, and where we built our community,” notes another co-director, as she provides a overview of the 30-acre property. “This once consisted of multiple separate areas,” she comments, as we stroll through tall vegetation filled with low scrub, bordered by mature woodland. “The primary visible change is that we’ve eliminated all the fencing, 1.2km of it, to make it feel like a unified area.” In the recent season, they donned special clothing and eradicated significant quantities of giant hogweed, an aggressive flora that can burn the flesh. “We’ve planted loads of bush lines,” notes she. “But the primary focus is we’ve just given it space for a brief period. We’ve reduced a large part of livestock impact and seen what’s emerged.”
Bushes and hedgerows are a perfect songbird home, she comments, although currently they’re cutting back some of the brambles to establish a more variety of ecosystems and to connect two parts of the site. New trees will take much more time to grow, but new growth from the adjacent oaks are already establishing themselves in the meadows; the team have been installing protectors to safeguard them from wildlife.
Nature Returns in Droves
In addition to the nightingales – wildlife is reappearing in abundance. This year they’ve spotted reptiles, creatures, flyers and bugs, says a team member, as he raises one of their survey equipment (such as a mat over a small hollow in the soil). “You find reptiles and wildlife residing under there, but it’s possibly a slightly cool for them now.” Organic nests, made from carved parts of wood and active with wild bees, are attached to some of the plants. The removal of livestock has allowed insects room to thrive in the overgrown areas. When they visited this summer, states he, “I’d not once encountered so countless butterflies. There were just clouds of them. We were like, ‘What is going on?’”
Beginnings of the Initiative
The first participants – Noah, Jack, Molly and two others – formed as students, pursuing or having an interest in ecology. In that year, the climate experts was predicting that the acceptable threshold of one and a half degrees of global heating was looking unachievable, the activist was leading the youth protests for eco-awareness, and advocate a speaker was talking about the generation feeling “environmental stress”. It was also the period of a writer's work, about nature recovery, on how they changed the Knepp Estate from a unsuccessful farm into a thriving natural habitat. “We were highly motivated by the Knepp story, but what could be the function for young people?” asks Molly. “So we created a website and contacted loads of environmental organizations and were saying, ‘Do you occasionally get your landowners wanting to do something and you are short on resources?’”
Jack continues the story: “Our entire organisation was essentially based on the idea that there were people who were willing to allow a group of youthful amateurs on to their land without strict rules, to take major choices that would change land value
