That manically melodic call of the nightingale is a scarce presence in England today, however not at the Surrey site. Previously, a single bird could be detected at this hidden place in rural Surrey; recently, they were everywhere. “We were hearing them chirping all night, from multiple areas,” says a lead scientist, chief environmental expert for the Youngwilders. A team of participants were residing temporarily at the site, yet the nightingales were so boisterous, “we were unable to rest all night,” remarks a project coordinator. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so cool.” An specialist from the local conservation group came to help them net and ring one of the songbirds the next morning, she recalls: “He’d never handled a songbird in his care before. He was teary.”
Ecological Restoration Speeds Up at This Location
Rewilding is by definition a slow business, but here at this property, after merely a short period, the outcomes are already evident, and audible. The land was once a sanctuary for horses. Now it’s a showpiece for the Youngwilders’ mission: to accelerate habitat revival, in one of the biodiversity-poor regions in the world, and to connect youth (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often shut out of, and a climate crisis they are often ineffectual to halt. Climate change advances, habitat loss destroys wildlife homes, and yet another climate conference draws to a unsatisfactory end in the host country – so who could fault the younger generation for wishing to take matters into their own hands?
The initiative was founded on the idea that there were landowners ready to let a group of young idiots on to their property
“The youth is the best educated in terms of nature that there’s historically,” says the Youngwilders’ leader, a key figure. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the challenges, and have played the smallest part to their origin, and, then, are also going to be affected the greatest as a result.”
Revitalization of the Landscape
Today, the organisation is growing across the UK – and the original site was the beginning, in all respects. “It’s where we started, and the place we created our connections,” says a founding member, as she provides a walkthrough of the 12-hectare land. “This once consisted of multiple separate areas,” she says, as we stroll through tall vegetation dotted with low scrub, surrounded by established trees. “The key visual difference is that we’ve taken out all the barriers, 1.2km of it, to make it feel like a unified area.” In the warmer months, they donned hazmat suits and eradicated masses of harmful weeds, an invasive species that can irritate the body. “We’ve introduced loads of natural barriers,” says the director. “But the primary focus is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a brief period. We’ve removed a significant amount of grazing pressure and observed what’s sprung up.”
Bushes and hedgerows are a excellent nightingale environment, she says, however today they’re trimming some of the brambles to develop a increased range of environments and to link up two parts of the property. New trees will take considerably longer to establish, but young trees from the nearby trees are already establishing themselves in the open areas; the crew have been installing barriers to safeguard them from grazing deer.
Wildlife Comes Back in Abundance
There's more than the songbirds – wildlife is returning in droves. Recently they’ve observed serpents, legless lizards, nocturnal mammals and insects, notes Noah Bennett, as he raises one of their monitoring tools (similar to a mat over a small hollow in the earth). “You find reptiles and things hiding under there, but it’s likely a somewhat chilly for them now.” Wild nests, constructed from hollowed-out pieces of wood and humming with pollinators, are attached to some of the plants. The absence of animals has allowed invertebrates space to prosper in the meadows. When they visited this season, states he, “I’d never observed so numerous butterflies. There were just masses of them. We were saying, ‘What is happening?’”
Beginnings of the Project
The initial founders – Bennett, Durant, Easton and more individuals – came together as learners, focusing on or sharing an interest in environmental science. In that year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was forecasting that the target of one and a half degrees of global heating was seeming impossible, the activist was guiding the youth protests for environmental action, and advocate another voice was discussing youth feeling “climate anxiety”. It was also the period of the author's book, Wilding, on how the authors transformed the a Sussex location from a failing agricultural business into a thriving natural habitat. “We were deeply influenced by the Knepp story, but what could be the role for young people?” asks Easton. “So we made a website and contacted numerous of conservation groups and were saying, ‘Do you occasionally get your landowners wishing to make changes and you don’t have capacity?’”
Jack adds the story: “Our entire organisation was fundamentally based on the idea that there were people who were prepared to let a group of young enthusiasts on to their land freely, to take fairly massive choices that would affect land value
