That beautifully intricate call of the nightingale is a scarce sound in England today, yet not at the Surrey site. Previously, a lone nightingale could be noticed at this remote location in rural Surrey; lately, they were everywhere. “We were hearing them chirping all night, from multiple areas,” notes one ecologist, top biologist for the youth rewilding group. A group of volunteers were residing temporarily at the site, yet the nightingales were so loud, “we stayed awake all night,” says Layla Mapemba. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so amazing.” An specialist from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them trap and mark one of the birds the next morning, the ecologist remembers: “He’d never held a songbird in his possession before. He was crying.”
Rewilding Speeds Up at the Surrey Site
Nature recovery is by its very essence a gradual business, but at this site at the farm, after only four years, the changes are already evident, and audible. The farm previously served as a haven for horses. Currently it’s a model for the Youngwilders’ purpose: to accelerate habitat revival, in one of the most nature-depleted regions in the planet, and to link young people (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often excluded from, and a global warming issue they are often powerless to prevent. Global heating continues, deforestation damages ecosystems, and another Cop summit draws to a unsatisfactory outcome in abroad – so who could blame the younger generation for choosing to act independently?
Our project was premised on the belief that there were individuals ready to let a group of young idiots on to their property
“The newer cohort is the most knowledgeable environmentally that there’s previously,” states the group's leader, Jack Durant. They are also “the highly invested in the challenges, and have played the minimal role to their origin, and, then, are also going to experience consequences the greatest as a result.”
Change of the Landscape
Today, the initiative is taking root across the United Kingdom – and the original site started it all, in all respects. “It’s where we started, and the place we established our community,” explains Molly Easton, as she offers a tour of the 30-acre land. “This was previously multiple separate areas,” she says, as we walk through overgrown meadows dotted with shrubs, bordered by forest. “The key noticeable difference is that we’ve eliminated all the fencing, a significant length of it, to make it feel like a single environment.” In the warmer months, they donned special clothing and eradicated significant quantities of harmful weeds, an aggressive flora that can harm the skin. “We’ve planted numerous of natural barriers,” notes Easton. “But the main thing is we’ve just given it space for a brief period. We’ve removed a large part of livestock impact and seen what’s sprung up.”
Low scrub and natural fences are a ideal songbird habitat, she explains, but now they’re trimming some of the wild growth to establish a increased range of ecosystems and to connect different sections of the site. Young saplings will take a while to establish, but young trees from the surrounding woodland are already taking root in the meadows; the crew have been installing protectors to safeguard them from grazing deer.
Nature Reappears in Abundance
There's more than the songbirds – wildlife is coming back in large numbers. Lately they’ve seen grass snakes, legless lizards, bats and insects, explains another co-director, as he uncovers one of their survey equipment (similar to a cover over a depression in the soil). “You discover creatures and animals sheltering under there, but it’s likely a bit cool for them now.” Natural nests, built using hollowed-out pieces of timber and buzzing with wild bees, are strapped to some of the trees. The lack of livestock has allowed small creatures room to flourish in the overgrown areas. When they came to this time, says he, “I’d not ever seen so numerous butterflies. There were just swarms of them. We were like, ‘What is going on?’”
Beginnings of the Initiative
The original founders – Bennett, Jack, Easton and additional members – formed as students, pursuing or having an interest in nature. In 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was predicting that the acceptable threshold of one and a half degrees of warming was appearing impossible, a prominent figure was leading the demonstrations for climate movement, and activist Clover Hogan was talking about young people suffering from “eco-worry”. It was also the time of the author's publication, Wilding, on how the authors transformed the Knepp Estate from a unsuccessful agricultural business into a flourishing ecosystem. “We were deeply influenced by the case study, but what was the role for the next generation?” says Easton. “So we created a website and contacted numerous of environmental organizations and were asking, ‘Do you sometimes get your landowners wanting to make changes and you are short on capacity?’”
Jack continues the story: “Our whole initiative was essentially based on the idea that there were landowners who were ready to permit a bunch of young enthusiasts on to their property freely, to decide on major decisions that would impact land value
