That manically melodic song of the nightingale is a uncommon occurrence in England nowadays, yet it's different at this rural location. Four years ago, a lone bird could be noticed at this secluded location in the countryside of Surrey; lately, they were all around. “We were listening to them calling all night, from five different territories,” explains Meg Cookson, lead ecologist for the Youngwilders. A team of volunteers were residing temporarily at the location, however the birds were so boisterous, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” says a project coordinator. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so cool.” An expert from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them trap and mark one of the nightingales the next morning, Cookson recalls: “He’d never handled a nightingale in his possession before. He was teary.”
Ecological Restoration Progresses at This Location
Rewilding is by nature a gradual endeavor, but here at the farm, after only a short period, the results are already evident, and audible. The land was once a retirement home for equines. Today it’s a showpiece for the Youngwilders’ goal: to hasten habitat revival, in one of the ecologically impoverished nations in the planet, and to engage the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often denied access to, and a global warming issue they are often unable to prevent. Global heating persists, deforestation eliminates wildlife homes, and one more climate conference ends with a frustrating conclusion in abroad – so what person could blame youth for choosing to act independently?
The project was based on the notion that there were people ready to let a collection of youthful enthusiasts on to their estate
“The younger generation is the best educated environmentally that there’s historically,” states the Youngwilders’ founder, one organizer. They are also “the highly invested in the problems, and have contributed the minimal role to their origin, and, then, are also going to be affected most as a result.”
Change of the Site
Currently, the organisation is taking root across the United Kingdom – and the original site was the beginning, in multiple ways. “It’s where we started, and the place we built our network,” explains a founding member, as she provides a walkthrough of the 30-acre land. “This used to be divided plots,” she states, as we walk through tall vegetation filled with low scrub, surrounded by established trees. “The primary visible change is that we’ve removed all the barriers, over a kilometer of it, to create the impression like one landscape.” In the warmer months, they used hazmat suits and cleared large amounts of harmful weeds, an invasive species that can burn the skin. “We’ve introduced loads of hedgerows,” notes the director. “But the primary focus is we’ve just let it breathe for a little bit. We’ve reduced a large part of livestock impact and seen what’s emerged.”
Bushes and natural fences are a ideal songbird home, she says, although currently they’re cutting back some of the brambles to establish a greater variety of environments and to join separate areas of the property. Fresh plantings will take considerably longer to establish, but new growth from the adjacent oaks are already growing in the open areas; the crew have been setting up protectors to safeguard them from wildlife.
Nature Returns in Droves
In addition to the songbirds – fauna is coming back in droves. Recently they’ve seen reptiles, creatures, flyers and invertebrates, says another co-director, as he lifts up one of their reptile mats (like a mat over a depression in the earth). “You get snakes and things hiding under there, but it’s possibly a somewhat chilly for them now.” Organic beehives, built using carved pieces of tree trunk and active with wild bees, are strapped to some of the plants. The lack of animals has allowed invertebrates opportunity to prosper in the meadows. When they visited this time, says the director, “I’d not ever seen so numerous lepidoptera. There were just swarms of them. We were saying, ‘What is happening?’”
Origins of the Project
The first founders – Noah, Jack, Easton and additional members – came together as learners, pursuing or expressing an interest in ecology. In that year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was forecasting that the acceptable threshold of one and a half degrees of warming was appearing unachievable, Greta Thunberg was guiding the demonstrations for climate movement, and campaigner another voice was addressing youth feeling “climate anxiety”. It was also the period of a writer's work, on rewilding, on how the authors changed the a nearby property from a struggling agricultural business into a flourishing natural habitat. “We were highly motivated by the Knepp story, but what could be the part for the next generation?” questions Easton. “So we created a platform and contacted loads of environmental organizations and were asking, ‘Do you ever get your landowners wishing to take action and you are short on resources?’”
Jack adds the account: “Our entire project was basically based on the notion that there were landowners who were prepared to allow a group of youthful idiots on to their land freely, to take significant decisions that would change land value
