That manically melodic song of the songbird is a scarce sound in England nowadays, but it's different at the Surrey site. Four years ago, a solitary nightingale could be detected at this secluded location in rural Surrey; lately, they were in multiple locations. “We were listening to them singing all night, from multiple areas,” notes Meg Cookson, top biologist for the Youngwilders. A group of Youngwilders were residing temporarily at the location, yet the nightingales were so loud, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” remarks a project coordinator. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so amazing.” An professional from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them capture and tag one of the nightingales the next morning, Cookson remembers: “He’d never handled a nightingale in his hands before. He was teary.”
Rewilding Speeds Up at This Location
Rewilding is by its very essence a slow business, but in this place at this property, after merely a short period, the results are already apparent, and audible. The farm previously served as a sanctuary for animals. Now it’s a showpiece for the Youngwilders’ purpose: to speed up nature recovery, in one of the biodiversity-poor nations in the planet, and to link youth (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often denied access to, and a global warming issue they are often unable to halt. Climate change advances, tree clearing damages ecosystems, and yet another climate conference draws to a unsatisfactory conclusion in Brazil – so what person could blame the younger generation for wishing to initiate change themselves?
The project was based on the idea that there were individuals prepared to allow a collection of young enthusiasts on to their estate
“The younger generation is the most knowledgeable environmentally that there’s ever been,” says the Youngwilders’ co-director, one organizer. They are also “the deeply concerned in the challenges, and have added the least to their creation, and, then, are also going to suffer the greatest as a consequence.”
Revitalization of the Site
Now, the initiative is expanding across the Britain – and the original site was the beginning, in every sense. “It’s where we started, and where we created our connections,” notes a founding member, as she provides a overview of the 30-acre land. “This was previously divided plots,” she states, as we walk through overgrown meadows dotted with bushes, surrounded by established trees. “The primary visible change is that we’ve removed all the barriers, a significant length of it, to create the impression like one area.” In the recent season, they wore hazmat suits and removed large amounts of harmful weeds, an non-native plant that can burn the body. “We’ve established loads of natural barriers,” says she. “But the primary focus is we’ve just given it space for a little bit. We’ve removed a lot of animal feeding and observed what’s sprung up.”
Low scrub and natural fences are a ideal nightingale environment, she explains, but now they’re managing some of the thorny plants to create a more diversity of habitats and to connect two parts of the land. New trees will take considerably longer to grow, but new growth from the nearby oaks are already growing in the fields; the team have been setting up guards to shield them from grazing deer.
Animals Reappears in Large Numbers
In addition to the nightingales – animals is coming back in droves. Lately they’ve seen grass snakes, legless lizards, bats and insects, notes Noah Bennett, as he uncovers one of their reptile mats (such as a doormat over a indentation in the soil). “You discover reptiles and animals hiding under there, but it’s probably a bit cold for them now.” Wild homes, constructed from hollowed-out sections of wood and humming with insects, are attached to some of the trees. The absence of livestock has provided small creatures room to prosper in the meadows. When they came to this summer, comments Bennett, “I’d not ever seen so many insects. There were just masses of them. We were saying, ‘What is going on?’”
Inception of the Project
The initial founders – Bennett, Durant, Molly and more individuals – came together as learners, pursuing or having an interest in environmental science. In that year, the IPCC was forecasting that the target of one and a half degrees of warming was seeming unachievable, the activist was leading the demonstrations for eco-awareness, and advocate a speaker was addressing young people feeling “eco-worry”. It was also the period of a writer's publication, Wilding, on how the authors revitalized the Knepp Estate from a unsuccessful farm into a thriving natural habitat. “We were deeply influenced by the Knepp story, but what could be the role for young people?” questions Molly. “So we developed a platform and rang up numerous of wildlife trusts and were saying, ‘Do you occasionally get your estate holders wishing to do something and you lack resources?’”
Jack adds the narrative: “Our whole organisation was essentially premised on the belief that there were people who were ready to permit a collection of youthful enthusiasts on to their estate without strict rules, to take significant decisions that would change land value
