The manically melodic song of the nightingale is a rare sound in the UK today, but not at this rural location. Previously, a lone bird could be heard at this remote place in rural Surrey; recently, they were everywhere. “We were listening to them calling all night, from multiple areas,” says one ecologist, lead ecologist for the eco-activist organization. A band of Youngwilders were staying overnight at the property, but the nightingales were so boisterous, “we stayed awake all night,” comments a project coordinator. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so incredible.” An professional from the local conservation group came to help them capture and tag one of the birds the next morning, she recalls: “He’d never touched a songbird in his hands before. He was crying.”
Ecological Restoration Speeds Up at the Surrey Site
Rewilding is by its very essence a gradual business, but here at this property, after only a short period, the changes are already apparent, and hearable. The land was once a haven for animals. Currently it’s a showpiece for the youth-led purpose: to speed up ecological restoration, in one of the biodiversity-poor regions in the globe, and to connect youth (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often denied access to, and a climate crisis they are often ineffectual to prevent. Global heating advances, habitat loss damages wildlife homes, and yet another climate conference ends with a frustrating outcome in abroad – so who could criticize youth for wishing to act independently?
The project was founded on the belief that there were landowners willing to let a collection of youthful idiots on to their land
“The youth is the most informed environmentally that there’s historically,” states the group's co-director, one organizer. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the challenges, and have played the smallest part to their creation, and, then, are also going to be affected the greatest as a outcome.”
Transformation of the Site
Now, the initiative is taking root across the United Kingdom – and the original site planted the seed, in all respects. “It’s where we started, and the place we established our network,” explains Molly Easton, as she gives a overview of the 30-acre site. “This once consisted of six different fields,” she says, as we stroll through overgrown meadows featuring shrubs, bordered by forest. “The key visual transformation is that we’ve eliminated all the fencing, over a kilometer of it, to make it feel like a unified environment.” In the summer, they donned special clothing and eradicated large amounts of harmful weeds, an non-native plant that can harm the skin. “We’ve introduced many of bush lines,” notes she. “But the primary focus is we’ve just let it breathe for a short time. We’ve reduced a lot of grazing pressure and noticed what’s sprung up.”
Underbrush and hedgerows are a perfect nightingale home, she says, however now they’re managing some of the brambles to establish a increased range of ecosystems and to connect two parts of the land. Young saplings will take much more time to take root, but new growth from the nearby trees are already taking root in the meadows; the crew have been setting up protectors to safeguard them from grazing deer.
Animals Returns in Abundance
There's more than the songbirds – animals is coming back in large numbers. Lately they’ve seen reptiles, creatures, flyers and insects, notes another co-director, as he lifts up one of their survey equipment (like a doormat over a small hollow in the earth). “You get snakes and things residing under there, but it’s probably a slightly cool for them now.” Natural beehives, built using empty parts of timber and humming with wild bees, are attached to some of the woodland. The removal of grazing horses has provided small creatures room to flourish in the long grass. When they came to this time, states Bennett, “I’d not once observed so numerous lepidoptera. There were just masses of them. We were saying, ‘What is happening?’”
Beginnings of the Project
The first Youngwilders – Bennett, Durant, Easton and more individuals – came together as students, pursuing or sharing an interest in environmental science. In 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was predicting that the safe limit of one and a half degrees of global heating was seeming out of reach, the activist was leading the school strikes for environmental action, and activist Clover Hogan was discussing young people experiencing “climate anxiety”. It was also the period of the author's work, about nature recovery, on how the authors changed the a nearby property 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?” says Molly. “So we developed a platform and called many of conservation groups and were saying, ‘Do you occasionally get your landowners seeking to take action and you are short on capacity?’”
Jack explains the story: “Our complete initiative was basically based on the idea that there were people who were ready to allow a collection of young enthusiasts on to their land without strict rules, to decide on fairly massive decisions that would impact land value
