🔗 Share this article

The manically melodic melody of the songbird is a scarce sound in Britain these days, however it's different at this rural location. Previously, a single bird could be detected at this hidden location in rural Surrey; this summer, they were all around. “We were listening to them chirping all night, from five different territories,” explains one ecologist, top biologist for the Youngwilders. A team of volunteers were residing temporarily at the site, but the nightingales were so noisy, “we were unable to rest all night,” comments a project coordinator. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so incredible.” An expert from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them capture and tag one of the songbirds the next morning, the ecologist remembers: “He’d never held a nightingale in his hands before. He was emotional.”

Habitat Revival Speeds Up at This Location

Nature recovery is by definition a gradual business, but at this site at the farm, after only a short period, the outcomes are already evident, and hearable. The land was once a sanctuary for horses. Now it’s a example for the youth-led purpose: to hasten nature recovery, in one of the ecologically impoverished nations in the planet, and to link young people (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often denied access to, and a environmental emergency they are often unable to halt. Rising temperatures advances, deforestation destroys wildlife homes, and another international meeting comes to a frustrating outcome in abroad – so who could criticize young people for choosing to initiate change themselves?

The organisation was founded on the idea that there were landowners prepared to allow a group of youthful idiots on to their estate

“The younger generation is the best educated in terms of nature that there’s historically,” says the group's founder, a key figure. They are also “the deeply concerned in the challenges, and have played the minimal role to their causing, and, then, are also going to be affected the worst as a consequence.”

Revitalization of the Site

Currently, the organisation is growing across the UK – and Maple Farm started it all, in every sense. “It’s our origin point, and where we created our network,” notes Molly Easton, as she offers a walkthrough of the 30-acre land. “This once consisted of multiple separate areas,” she comments, as we walk through tall vegetation dotted with shrubs, hemmed by established trees. “The key visual difference is that we’ve removed all the fencing, a significant length of it, to make it feel like a single area.” In the warmer months, they donned hazmat suits and removed significant quantities of invasive plants, an non-native plant that can burn the body. “We’ve planted numerous of hedgerows,” says the director. “But the primary focus is we’ve just given it space for a short time. We’ve reduced a significant amount of livestock impact and noticed what’s sprung up.”

Underbrush and hedgerows are a ideal songbird home, she says, but now they’re cutting back some of the thorny plants to create a greater range of ecosystems and to link up different sections of the site. New trees will take much more time to grow, but saplings from the nearby woodland are already taking root in the open areas; the group have been placing barriers to safeguard them from animals.

Wildlife Comes Back in Abundance

It’s not just the songbirds – fauna is coming back in droves. Lately they’ve observed grass snakes, legless lizards, bats and invertebrates, explains another co-director, as he raises one of their reptile mats (such as a cover over a small hollow in the ground). “You find reptiles and things residing under there, but it’s probably a slightly chilly for them now.” Wild nests, constructed from hollowed-out sections of wood and humming with wild bees, are attached to some of the plants. The lack of livestock has allowed insects space to flourish in the overgrown areas. When they came to this summer, comments he, “I’d never seen so many butterflies. There were just swarms of them. We were like, ‘What is occurring?’”

Inception of the Movement

The initial Youngwilders – Noah, Durant, Molly and more individuals – formed as youth, studying or having an concern in nature. In 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was forecasting that the safe limit of one and a half degrees of climate change was seeming impossible, a prominent figure was leading the youth protests for climate movement, and activist a speaker was discussing youth suffering from “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 unsuccessful dairy farm into a flourishing ecosystem. “We were super-inspired by the case study, but what was the role for young people?” asks Molly. “So we made a website and contacted loads of environmental organizations and were saying, ‘Do you ever get your landowners wanting to take action and you don’t have capacity?’”

Jack adds the account: “Our complete project was fundamentally based on the belief that there were landowners who were ready to allow a bunch of young amateurs on to their land indiscriminately, to decide on major actions that would change land value