The manically melodic song of the songbird is a uncommon presence in England today, but not at Maple Farm. Four years ago, a single nightingale could be noticed at this remote spot in rural Surrey; recently, they were all around. “We were listening to them chirping all night, from multiple areas,” says Meg Cookson, chief environmental expert for the eco-activist organization. A band of participants were camping out at the property, yet the nightingales were so noisy, “we were unable to rest all night,” says Layla Mapemba. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so amazing.” An expert from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them net and ring one of the songbirds the next morning, the ecologist recalls: “He’d never touched a nightingale in his care before. He was teary.”
Rewilding Accelerates at Maple Farm
Nature recovery is by definition a slow process, but in this place at the farm, after just several seasons, the outcomes are already evident, and noticeable. The land used to be a haven for equines. Now it’s a showpiece for the Youngwilders’ mission: to accelerate ecological restoration, in one of the ecologically impoverished nations in the globe, and to connect youth (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often excluded from, and a climate crisis they are often unable to prevent. Global heating continues, habitat loss damages wildlife homes, and another international meeting ends with a unsatisfactory end in the host country – so who could fault youth for wishing to take matters into their own hands?
The initiative was premised on the notion that there were landowners prepared to allow a collection of young idiots on to their estate
“The youth is the most knowledgeable ecologically that there’s historically,” says the Youngwilders’ founder, Jack Durant. They are also “the deeply concerned in the problems, and have added the smallest part to their origin, and, then, are also going to be affected the worst as a result.”
Change of the Property
Currently, the organisation is growing across the UK – and the original site was the beginning, in multiple ways. “It’s where we started, and where we established our network,” notes Molly Easton, as she offers a overview of the 12-hectare site. “This used to be six different fields,” she says, as we walk through overgrown meadows filled with bushes, hemmed by forest. “The key noticeable difference is that we’ve taken out all the fencing, a significant length of it, to create the impression like one environment.” In the recent season, they used hazmat suits and eradicated large amounts of harmful weeds, an invasive species that can irritate the flesh. “We’ve established many of bush lines,” explains she. “But the main thing is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a little bit. We’ve eliminated a lot of grazing pressure and noticed what’s sprung up.”
Low scrub and natural fences are a perfect nightingale environment, she says, but currently they’re cutting back some of the brambles to create a greater diversity of ecosystems and to join two parts of the site. Young saplings will take a while to grow, but young trees from the surrounding oaks are already establishing themselves in the open areas; the crew have been installing guards to safeguard them from grazing deer.
Nature Reappears in Droves
It’s not just the nightingales – fauna is returning in large numbers. This year they’ve observed reptiles, creatures, nocturnal mammals and insects, says a team member, as he raises one of their monitoring tools (such as a cover over a indentation in the soil). “You discover creatures and wildlife residing under there, but it’s possibly a somewhat cool for them now.” Wild nests, built using empty parts of tree trunk and humming with pollinators, are attached to some of the trees. The lack of grazing horses has allowed insects opportunity to prosper in the meadows. When they visited this time, comments the director, “I’d not ever observed so many insects. There were just swarms of them. We were saying, ‘What is going on?’”
Origins of the Project
The original Youngwilders – Noah, Durant, Easton and additional members – came together as learners, focusing on or sharing an interest in ecology. In 2019, the climate experts was predicting that the safe limit of 1.5C of warming was appearing out of reach, a prominent figure was guiding the school strikes for climate movement, and activist a speaker was talking about young people suffering from “environmental stress”. It was also the period of Isabella Tree’s work, about nature recovery, on how they transformed the a nearby property from a failing dairy farm into a successful natural habitat. “We were super-inspired by the case study, but what was the role for the next generation?” says Easton. “So we developed a website and contacted loads of wildlife trusts and were asking, ‘Do you occasionally get your property owners wishing to do something and you don’t have time?’”
Jack adds the story: “Our entire organisation was basically based on the idea that there were individuals who were prepared to let a collection of youthful enthusiasts on to their land without strict rules, to decide on significant choices that would affect land value
