That manically melodic song of the songbird is a scarce sound in England these days, but not at the Surrey site. Back in 2020, a single nightingale could be noticed at this secluded location in the countryside of Surrey; lately, they were all around. “We were listening to them singing all night, from multiple areas,” says a lead scientist, top biologist for the Youngwilders. A team of participants were residing temporarily at the location, yet the nightingales were so loud, “we were unable to rest all night,” remarks an engagement lead. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so incredible.” An specialist from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them net and ring one of the songbirds the next morning, Cookson states: “He’d never handled a nightingale in his care before. He was crying.”
Rewilding Speeds Up at the Surrey Site
Rewilding is by its very essence a slow process, but here at this property, after just four years, the changes are already visible, and hearable. The farm was once a haven for horses. Now it’s a model for the youth-led purpose: to accelerate nature recovery, in one of the biodiversity-poor regions in the planet, and to engage the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often excluded from, and a environmental emergency they are often unable to halt. Global heating continues, habitat loss damages ecosystems, and one more Cop summit ends with a frustrating end in the host country – so what person could blame young people for wanting to initiate change themselves?
The initiative was founded on the notion that there were people prepared to allow a group of young idiots on to their land
“The newer cohort is the most informed ecologically that there’s historically,” explains the Youngwilders’ leader, Jack Durant. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the issues, and have contributed the smallest part to their creation, and, then, are also going to experience consequences most as a result.”
Change of the Site
Currently, the initiative is expanding across the United Kingdom – and the original site planted the seed, in multiple ways. “It’s the initial project, and where we created our network,” explains a founding member, as she gives a tour of the 30-acre site. “This was previously multiple separate areas,” she says, as we walk through tall vegetation dotted with shrubs, surrounded by established trees. “The main noticeable difference is that we’ve taken out all the barriers, 1.2km of it, to create the impression like a unified landscape.” In the summer, they donned protective gear and cleared significant quantities of giant hogweed, an aggressive flora that can irritate the body. “We’ve planted loads of natural barriers,” says the director. “But the key action is we’ve just given it space for a short time. We’ve reduced a lot of livestock impact and seen what’s emerged.”
Low scrub and shrub lines are a perfect nightingale habitat, she comments, although now they’re managing some of the brambles to develop a greater diversity of environments and to connect different sections of the site. New trees will take considerably longer to establish, but new growth from the nearby oaks are already growing in the fields; the crew have been placing barriers to safeguard them from grazing deer.
Animals Comes Back in Abundance
In addition to the nightingales – wildlife is returning in droves. This year they’ve seen grass snakes, creatures, bats and bugs, notes Noah Bennett, as he raises one of their reptile mats (like a doormat over a small hollow in the ground). “You discover reptiles and wildlife hiding under there, but it’s possibly a slightly cool for them now.” Natural nests, constructed from carved sections of tree trunk and humming with wild bees, are fixed to some of the trees. The lack of animals has provided insects room to thrive in the long grass. When they visited this season, says he, “I’d not ever seen so many lepidoptera. There were just masses of them. We were like, ‘What is happening?’”
Inception of the Initiative
The initial participants – Noah, Jack, Easton and more individuals – united as learners, pursuing or expressing an passion in nature. In 2019, the climate experts was indicating that the safe limit of one and a half degrees of climate change was appearing impossible, a prominent figure was guiding the school strikes for environmental action, and advocate Clover Hogan was talking about young people feeling “climate anxiety”. It was also the period of the author's publication, on rewilding, on how they revitalized the a nearby property from a failing agricultural business into a flourishing wildlife haven. “We were highly motivated by the example, but what could be the role for young people?” asks Molly. “So we created a platform and contacted loads of wildlife trusts and were asking, ‘Do you occasionally get your estate holders wanting to make changes and you are short on time?’”
Durant adds the narrative: “Our entire project was essentially founded on the belief that there were landowners who were willing to permit a bunch of youthful amateurs on to their estate without strict rules, to take major decisions that would affect land value
