The manically melodic song of the songbird is a scarce sound in the UK today, but not at this rural location. Back in 2020, a solitary bird could be detected at this secluded spot in rural Surrey; recently, they were all around. “We were listening to them calling all night, from five different territories,” explains Meg Cookson, chief environmental expert for the Youngwilders. A team of participants were residing temporarily at the property, however the birds were so loud, “we were unable to rest all night,” says Layla Mapemba. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so cool.” An expert from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them trap and mark one of the birds the next morning, Cookson recalls: “He’d never held a songbird in his hands before. He was crying.”
Ecological Restoration Progresses at the Surrey Site
Nature recovery is by definition a lengthy process, but here at this property, after just several seasons, the results are already visible, and noticeable. The land used to be a retirement home for equines. Today it’s a example for the youth-led mission: to hasten ecological restoration, in one of the biodiversity-poor regions 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 ineffectual to halt. Rising temperatures persists, tree clearing damages wildlife homes, and one more Cop summit draws to a frustrating conclusion in Brazil – so who could criticize young people for choosing to act independently?
The project was premised on the notion that there were landowners ready to let a group of youthful amateurs on to their property
“The youth is the most informed in terms of nature that there’s historically,” says the Youngwilders’ co-director, Jack Durant. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the issues, and have added the least to their causing, and, then, are also going to suffer most as a outcome.”
Transformation of the Site
Today, the group is growing across the UK – and Maple Farm was the beginning, in every sense. “It’s the initial project, and where we created our network,” says Molly Easton, as she gives a overview of the 12-hectare property. “This was previously divided plots,” she says, as we walk through long grass filled with bushes, surrounded by forest. “The main noticeable change is that we’ve eliminated all the fencing, 1.2km of it, to create the impression like a unified area.” In the warmer months, they used special clothing and removed large amounts of harmful weeds, an invasive species that can harm the skin. “We’ve planted loads of hedgerows,” explains the director. “But the key action is we’ve just let it breathe for a little bit. We’ve eliminated a large part of animal feeding and noticed what’s emerged.”
Low scrub and hedgerows are a perfect nightingale home, she says, but today they’re managing some of the thorny plants to create a more variety of habitats and to link up different sections of the site. New trees will take considerably longer to establish, but young trees from the nearby oaks are already establishing themselves in the fields; the group have been setting up guards to protect them from animals.
Wildlife Returns in Droves
It’s not just the songbirds – animals is coming back in large numbers. Recently they’ve observed serpents, slowworms, flyers and bugs, explains another co-director, as he uncovers one of their survey equipment (such as a cover over a indentation in the soil). “You find reptiles and wildlife hiding under there, but it’s probably a bit cool for them now.” Natural beehives, built using empty parts of timber and buzzing with insects, are strapped to some of the plants. The absence of grazing horses has allowed insects opportunity to thrive in the meadows. When they came to this time, says he, “I’d never observed so many insects. There were just swarms of them. We were wondering, ‘What is occurring?’”
Beginnings of the Project
The first participants – Noah, Durant, Molly and two others – united as students, pursuing or expressing an concern in environmental science. In that year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was predicting that the acceptable threshold of one and a half degrees of warming was seeming out of reach, Greta Thunberg was leading the school strikes for eco-awareness, and advocate Clover Hogan was talking about young people suffering from “climate anxiety”. It was also the time of a writer's work, on rewilding, on how she and her husband transformed the a nearby property from a failing agricultural business into a thriving ecosystem. “We were highly motivated by the example, but what was the role for youth?” questions Molly. “So we developed a website and rang up many of conservation groups and were like, ‘Do you sometimes get your estate holders seeking to do something and you are short on capacity?’”
Durant continues the narrative: “Our whole organisation was basically premised on the belief that there were individuals who were ready to let a collection of young idiots on to their property freely, to make significant actions that would impact land value
