That manically melodic melody of the songbird is a uncommon occurrence in England nowadays, however it's different at the Surrey site. Four years ago, a lone bird could be heard at this remote place in rural Surrey; lately, they were all around. “We were hearing them calling all night, from multiple areas,” notes a lead scientist, chief environmental expert for the youth rewilding group. A band of participants were camping out at the location, but the birds were so noisy, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” remarks Layla Mapemba. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so amazing.” An professional from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them capture and tag one of the birds the next morning, Cookson states: “He’d never held a nightingale in his possession before. He was emotional.”
Rewilding Progresses at the Surrey Site
Ecological restoration is by definition a lengthy endeavor, but here at this property, after just several seasons, the outcomes are already evident, and noticeable. The property used to be a retirement home for equines. Currently it’s a model for the Youngwilders’ mission: to speed up ecological restoration, in one of the ecologically impoverished regions in the planet, and to connect youth (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often shut out of, and a climate crisis they are often powerless to prevent. Global heating advances, habitat loss eliminates natural habitats, and yet another international meeting ends with a frustrating end in the host country – so what person could blame young people for wishing to initiate change themselves?
Our organisation was founded on the belief that there were individuals willing to allow a collection of young enthusiasts on to their land
“The younger generation is the most knowledgeable environmentally that there’s previously,” explains the Youngwilders’ co-director, Jack Durant. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the challenges, and have played the minimal role to their creation, and, then, are also going to suffer most as a result.”
Revitalization of the Property
Today, the organisation is growing across the UK – and the original site started it all, in multiple ways. “It’s our origin point, and the place we created our community,” explains another co-director, as she provides a tour of the 30-acre property. “This once consisted of six different fields,” she comments, as we move through tall vegetation featuring low scrub, bordered by forest. “The primary visual change is that we’ve taken out all the enclosures, over a kilometer of it, to create the impression like a single environment.” In the warmer months, they donned protective gear and removed masses of invasive plants, an invasive species that can irritate the body. “We’ve planted loads of hedgerows,” says she. “But the primary focus is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a short time. We’ve removed a significant amount of livestock impact and observed what’s come up.”
Bushes and natural fences are a ideal nightingale environment, she comments, although currently they’re cutting back some of the wild growth to develop a more range of environments and to connect different sections of the land. New trees will take considerably longer to grow, but new growth from the adjacent oaks are already growing in the meadows; the team have been placing guards to shield them from animals.
Animals Comes Back in Droves
It’s not just the songbirds – animals is coming back in droves. Recently they’ve observed serpents, creatures, bats and bugs, says Noah Bennett, as he raises one of their reptile mats (similar to a mat over a depression in the ground). “You discover reptiles and animals residing under there, but it’s likely a somewhat cold for them now.” Wild beehives, made from carved pieces of timber and humming with wild bees, are attached to some of the plants. The removal of grazing horses has provided small creatures opportunity to prosper in the meadows. When they visited this season, states the director, “I’d not once seen so numerous butterflies. There were just clouds of them. We were wondering, ‘What is happening?’”
Origins of the Initiative
The original founders – Noah, Jack, Molly and two others – united as students, studying or having an concern in environmental science. In that year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was indicating that the acceptable threshold of 1.5C of warming was looking impossible, Greta Thunberg was spearheading the school strikes for eco-awareness, and campaigner Clover Hogan was talking about youth feeling “eco-worry”. It was also the time of Isabella Tree’s work, on rewilding, on how they revitalized the Knepp Estate from a failing farm into a thriving natural habitat. “We were deeply influenced by the case study, but what was the part for youth?” questions Easton. “So we made a online presence and contacted loads of wildlife trusts and were saying, ‘Do you occasionally get your landowners wishing to do something and you are short on capacity?’”
Jack continues the account: “Our complete project was essentially founded on the belief that there were landowners who were prepared to permit a group of young idiots on to their property indiscriminately, to decide on fairly massive actions that would change land value
