The richly complex song of the nightingale is a rare occurrence in the UK today, yet it's different at the Surrey site. Back in 2020, a solitary nightingale could be heard at this secluded place in rural Surrey; lately, they were in multiple locations. “We were listening to them chirping all night, from five different territories,” notes one ecologist, lead ecologist for the Youngwilders. A team of Youngwilders were residing temporarily at the site, yet the nightingales were so boisterous, “we stayed awake all night,” remarks an engagement lead. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so incredible.” An professional from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them capture and tag one of the songbirds the next morning, Cookson states: “He’d never touched a nightingale in his possession before. He was teary.”
Rewilding Accelerates at This Location
Ecological restoration is by nature a slow endeavor, but here at the farm, after only several seasons, the results are already apparent, and audible. The land previously served as a retirement home for animals. Currently it’s a example for the Youngwilders’ mission: to hasten ecological restoration, in one of the biodiversity-poor regions in the globe, and to connect youth (18-30-year-olds) with a environment they are often denied access to, and a global warming issue they are often unable to prevent. Global heating advances, habitat loss damages ecosystems, and yet another Cop summit ends with a unsatisfactory end in abroad – so who could criticize young people for wishing to act independently?
Our project was premised on the belief that there were landowners willing to let a group of young idiots on to their estate
“The youth is the most informed in terms of nature that there’s ever been,” says the Youngwilders’ leader, Jack Durant. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the issues, and have played the smallest part to their origin, and, then, are also going to be affected the greatest as a consequence.”
Revitalization of the Site
Now, the group is taking root across the UK – and the original site planted the seed, in multiple ways. “It’s our origin point, and the place we built our network,” notes a founding member, as she gives a walkthrough of the 30-acre property. “This was previously multiple separate areas,” she comments, as we stroll through overgrown meadows filled with shrubs, surrounded by mature woodland. “The key visible difference is that we’ve eliminated all the fencing, over a kilometer of it, to give the sense like one area.” In the warmer months, they used protective gear and cleared masses of harmful weeds, an invasive species that can irritate the body. “We’ve introduced numerous of hedgerows,” says the director. “But the key action is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a little bit. We’ve reduced a lot of grazing pressure and observed what’s emerged.”
Bushes and natural fences are a perfect nightingale home, she explains, but currently they’re trimming some of the brambles to develop a greater range of habitats and to connect separate areas of the land. Young saplings will take much more time to take root, but saplings from the surrounding oaks are already taking root in the open areas; the crew have been setting up guards to shield them from wildlife.
Nature Reappears in Large Numbers
There's more than the nightingales – wildlife is coming back in droves. Lately they’ve observed serpents, creatures, nocturnal mammals and bugs, notes another co-director, as he lifts up one of their reptile mats (like a cover over a small hollow in the ground). “You discover snakes and animals hiding under there, but it’s probably a bit chilly for them now.” Wild homes, built using carved sections of wood and buzzing with insects, are attached to some of the trees. The lack of livestock has allowed insects opportunity to flourish in the overgrown areas. When they visited this season, says he, “I’d not ever observed so many butterflies. There were just masses of them. We were like, ‘What is going on?’”
Inception of the Project
The initial Youngwilders – Noah, Durant, Molly and more individuals – came together as learners, studying or expressing an concern in nature. In the recent past, the IPCC was indicating that the safe limit of one and a half degrees of global heating was seeming impossible, the activist was spearheading the school strikes for eco-awareness, and advocate another voice was addressing the generation feeling “climate anxiety”. It was also the era of Isabella Tree’s work, Wilding, on how they transformed the Knepp Estate from a unsuccessful agricultural business into a thriving wildlife haven. “We were super-inspired by the Knepp story, but what could be the function for youth?” questions Molly. “So we created a website and called many of environmental organizations and were saying, ‘Do you ever get your landowners wanting to do something and you lack resources?’”
Durant explains the account: “Our entire organisation was basically premised on the idea that there were people who were willing to let a group of youthful amateurs on to their estate freely, to take major decisions that would impact land value
