The beautifully intricate melody of the songbird is a scarce sound in Britain today, but it's different at this rural location. Four years ago, a solitary nightingale could be detected at this secluded location in the countryside of Surrey; this summer, they were everywhere. “We were listening to them chirping all night, from multiple areas,” notes a lead scientist, chief environmental expert for the youth rewilding group. A group of participants were camping out at the location, however the birds were so noisy, “we stayed awake all night,” says Layla Mapemba. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so cool.” An expert from the regional nature organization came to help them net and ring one of the songbirds the next morning, she states: “He’d never handled a nightingale in his care before. He was emotional.”
Habitat Revival Accelerates at the Surrey Site
Rewilding is by definition a slow business, but in this place at this property, after only several seasons, the changes are already apparent, and noticeable. The land previously served as a sanctuary for equines. Today it’s a showpiece for the youth-led purpose: to speed up ecological restoration, in one of the most nature-depleted nations in the planet, and to connect young people (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often excluded from, and a global warming issue they are often unable to prevent. Climate change continues, tree clearing destroys natural habitats, and one more Cop summit ends with a disappointing outcome in abroad – so who could blame youth for wishing to take matters into their own hands?
Our initiative was founded on the notion that there were landowners ready to allow a collection of young enthusiasts on to their property
“The youth is the most informed ecologically that there’s historically,” explains the group's co-director, Jack Durant. They are also “the highly invested in the problems, and have added the least to their origin, and, then, are also going to be affected the greatest as a consequence.”
Transformation of the Landscape
Currently, the initiative is growing across the UK – and Maple Farm was the beginning, in multiple ways. “It’s where we started, and the place we established our community,” says another co-director, as she gives a walkthrough of the 12-hectare site. “This once consisted of multiple separate areas,” she says, as we stroll through long grass filled with low scrub, surrounded by established trees. “The key noticeable change is that we’ve taken out all the barriers, a significant length of it, to create the impression like one landscape.” In the summer, they donned protective gear and removed significant quantities of giant hogweed, an invasive species that can irritate the body. “We’ve established many of bush lines,” says Easton. “But the key action is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a little bit. We’ve removed a large part of grazing pressure and observed what’s come up.”
Low scrub and hedgerows are a perfect nightingale home, she says, although today they’re trimming some of the brambles to develop a greater variety of habitats and to join different sections of the property. Fresh plantings will take considerably longer to grow, but saplings from the surrounding woodland are already taking root in the meadows; the team have been placing guards to shield them from wildlife.
Nature Returns in Large Numbers
In addition to the songbirds – wildlife is coming back in abundance. Recently they’ve seen grass snakes, slowworms, flyers and bugs, notes another co-director, as he raises one of their monitoring tools (similar to a mat over a small hollow in the earth). “You find reptiles and things sheltering under there, but it’s probably a slightly chilly for them now.” Wild nests, built using empty parts of timber and humming with wild bees, are strapped to some of the trees. The removal of animals has allowed small creatures space to flourish in the meadows. When they explored this time, comments Bennett, “I’d not once seen so many insects. There were just swarms of them. We were like, ‘What is happening?’”
Origins of the Movement
The original participants – Noah, Jack, Molly and more individuals – united as youth, studying or expressing an concern in ecology. In 2019, the IPCC was predicting that the acceptable threshold of one and a half degrees of climate change was looking out of reach, Greta Thunberg was leading the demonstrations for climate movement, and campaigner another voice was addressing youth experiencing “eco-worry”. It was also the period of Isabella Tree’s work, on rewilding, on how she and her husband transformed the a nearby property from a unsuccessful dairy farm into a thriving natural habitat. “We were highly motivated by the example, but what was the part for young people?” asks Molly. “So we made a website and contacted numerous of environmental organizations and were saying, ‘Do you occasionally get your landowners wanting to do something and you are short on time?’”
Durant explains the story: “Our entire initiative was essentially based on the notion that there were people who were willing to let a group of young idiots on to their land indiscriminately, to take fairly massive choices that would impact land value
