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The richly complex melody of the nightingale is a rare sound in Britain these days, yet not at Maple Farm. Previously, a lone bird could be detected at this hidden location in rural Surrey; recently, they were all around. “We were listening to them singing all night, from five different territories,” notes Meg Cookson, top biologist for the youth rewilding group. A group of participants were camping out at the property, however the nightingales were so loud, “we were unable to rest all night,” says an engagement lead. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so amazing.” An specialist from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them capture and tag one of the birds the next morning, she states: “He’d never handled a songbird in his care before. He was emotional.”

Habitat Revival Accelerates at the Surrey Site

Ecological restoration is by its very essence a lengthy process, but here at this property, after merely four years, the outcomes are already evident, and audible. The property was once a haven for horses. Today it’s a showpiece for the Youngwilders’ goal: to speed up nature recovery, in one of the biodiversity-poor countries in the world, and to connect the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often excluded from, and a environmental emergency they are often powerless to prevent. Climate change continues, tree clearing destroys ecosystems, and one more international meeting ends with a frustrating conclusion in Brazil – so what person could criticize young people for wanting to initiate change themselves?

The organisation was premised on the idea that there were people prepared to let a bunch of youthful idiots on to their estate

“The younger generation is the best educated in terms of nature that there’s previously,” says the Youngwilders’ co-director, a key figure. They are also “the highly invested in the challenges, and have played the least to their causing, and, then, are also going to suffer the worst as a consequence.”

Change of the Landscape

Currently, the organisation is taking root across the Britain – and this location started it all, in all respects. “It’s the initial project, and the place we created our network,” notes a founding member, as she offers a tour of the 30-acre site. “This was previously six different fields,” she comments, as we walk through long grass dotted with shrubs, bordered by established trees. “The key noticeable transformation is that we’ve removed all the barriers, a significant length of it, to create the impression like a unified area.” In the warmer months, they donned protective gear and cleared large amounts of harmful weeds, an aggressive flora that can irritate the flesh. “We’ve introduced numerous of natural barriers,” says the director. “But the main thing is we’ve just given it space for a short time. We’ve removed a lot of grazing pressure and observed what’s come up.”

Low scrub and shrub lines are a perfect songbird habitat, she says, however today they’re cutting back some of the thorny plants to develop a increased range of habitats and to connect two parts of the land. Young saplings will take much more time to grow, but young trees from the surrounding woodland are already taking root in the meadows; the group have been placing protectors to shield them from animals.

Animals Comes Back in Abundance

It’s not just the songbirds – fauna is coming back in abundance. This year they’ve seen serpents, slowworms, nocturnal mammals and insects, says Noah Bennett, as he raises one of their reptile mats (like a cover over a indentation in the ground). “You discover snakes and wildlife residing under there, but it’s probably a slightly cool for them now.” Organic nests, made from hollowed-out pieces of wood and buzzing with wild bees, are fixed to some of the trees. The lack of animals has allowed insects opportunity to prosper in the overgrown areas. When they visited this summer, says he, “I’d not ever observed so countless lepidoptera. There were just swarms of them. We were wondering, ‘What is happening?’”

Beginnings of the Project

The initial founders – Bennett, Durant, Molly and two others – united as students, studying or expressing an passion in nature. In that year, the IPCC was predicting that the acceptable threshold of one and a half degrees of warming was seeming unachievable, a prominent figure was leading the youth protests for climate movement, and activist a speaker was talking about youth feeling “environmental stress”. It was also the period of Isabella Tree’s publication, Wilding, on how the authors transformed the a nearby property from a unsuccessful dairy farm into a successful wildlife haven. “We were super-inspired by the case study, but what was the part for young people?” asks Molly. “So we made a platform and contacted numerous of wildlife trusts and were asking, ‘Do you occasionally get your estate holders wanting to do something and you don’t have capacity?’”

Jack continues the narrative: “Our complete organisation was fundamentally founded on the belief that there were people who were prepared to let a collection of youthful idiots on to their property indiscriminately, to take fairly massive decisions that would change land value