The beautifully intricate call of the songbird is a scarce occurrence in England these days, yet it's different at the Surrey site. Previously, a single nightingale could be heard at this secluded place in rural Surrey; recently, they were in multiple locations. “We were listening to them singing all night, from five different territories,” says Meg Cookson, lead ecologist for the youth rewilding group. A team of participants were camping out at the property, however the birds were so loud, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” says an engagement lead. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so cool.” An professional from the regional nature organization came to help them trap and mark one of the birds the next morning, Cookson recalls: “He’d never handled a songbird in his care before. He was teary.”
Habitat Revival Progresses at the Surrey Site
Nature recovery is by nature a gradual endeavor, but here at this property, after just a short period, the outcomes are already apparent, and hearable. The land used to be a retirement home for horses. Today it’s a showpiece for the youth-led goal: to speed up habitat revival, in one of the ecologically impoverished regions in the world, and to engage the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often shut out of, and a environmental emergency they are often unable to stop. Climate change advances, tree clearing destroys natural habitats, and yet another international meeting ends with a disappointing outcome in abroad – so who could fault youth for wanting to initiate change themselves?
Our project was based on the notion that there were individuals willing to allow a collection of youthful idiots on to their estate
“The newer cohort is the best educated in terms of nature that there’s ever been,” says the Youngwilders’ founder, a key figure. They are also “the deeply concerned in the challenges, and have played the least to their origin, and, then, are also going to suffer the worst as a outcome.”
Transformation of the Landscape
Currently, the organisation is taking root across the UK – and this location planted the seed, in multiple ways. “It’s where we started, and where we established our network,” notes Molly Easton, as she provides a walkthrough of the 12-hectare property. “This used to be divided plots,” she comments, as we stroll through long grass dotted with shrubs, bordered by mature woodland. “The key noticeable difference is that we’ve removed all the fencing, 1.2km of it, to make it feel like a unified landscape.” In the warmer months, they donned special clothing and removed significant quantities of harmful weeds, an non-native plant that can irritate the body. “We’ve introduced numerous of hedgerows,” notes she. “But the key action is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a short time. We’ve eliminated a lot of animal feeding and observed what’s come up.”
Low scrub and shrub lines are a ideal songbird environment, she comments, although today they’re managing some of the thorny plants to establish a more diversity of environments and to join separate areas of the property. Young saplings will take a while to take root, but saplings from the nearby woodland are already growing in the meadows; the crew have been installing protectors to protect them from wildlife.
Animals Comes Back in Droves
It’s not just the nightingales – fauna is coming back in large numbers. Recently they’ve seen reptiles, slowworms, nocturnal mammals and invertebrates, notes Noah Bennett, as he uncovers one of their survey equipment (similar to a cover over a small hollow in the earth). “You find snakes and wildlife sheltering under there, but it’s possibly a somewhat cold for them now.” Natural nests, constructed from hollowed-out pieces of timber and buzzing with insects, are attached to some of the trees. The absence of grazing horses has given small creatures space to prosper in the long grass. When they visited this summer, says he, “I’d not ever observed so numerous insects. There were just clouds of them. We were saying, ‘What is happening?’”
Beginnings of the Project
The first Youngwilders – Noah, Durant, Molly and two others – formed as learners, focusing on or sharing an interest in ecology. In the recent past, the IPCC was forecasting that the acceptable threshold of one and a half degrees of global heating was seeming unachievable, Greta Thunberg was guiding the youth protests for environmental action, and campaigner another voice was addressing the generation experiencing “climate anxiety”. It was also the period of a writer's book, on rewilding, on how the authors changed the a nearby property from a unsuccessful agricultural business into a flourishing wildlife haven. “We were highly motivated by the example, but what was the function for young people?” says Molly. “So we developed a website and rang up loads of environmental organizations and were asking, ‘Do you ever get your landowners wanting to take action and you are short on resources?’”
Durant explains the account: “Our entire initiative was essentially based on the notion that there were people who were willing to let a group of youthful idiots on to their property indiscriminately, to decide on significant actions that would affect land value
