The manically melodic melody of the nightingale is a scarce occurrence in the UK these days, yet not at the Surrey site. Back in 2020, a solitary nightingale could be heard at this hidden spot in the countryside of Surrey; lately, they were in multiple locations. “We were listening to them singing all night, from five different territories,” says Meg Cookson, top biologist for the youth rewilding group. A group of participants were residing temporarily at the property, but the nightingales were so noisy, “we were unable to rest all night,” comments a project coordinator. “We were all worn out 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, the ecologist remembers: “He’d never handled a nightingale in his hands before. He was teary.”
Ecological Restoration Progresses at This Location
Rewilding is by definition a lengthy process, but at this site at Maple Farm, after only several seasons, the results are already evident, and audible. The land was once a haven for equines. Now it’s a example for the youth-led mission: to hasten nature recovery, in one of the biodiversity-poor countries in the planet, and to connect youth (18-30-year-olds) with a environment they are often denied access to, and a climate crisis they are often powerless to prevent. Climate change continues, habitat loss destroys wildlife homes, and another climate conference comes to a disappointing outcome in Brazil – so who could blame young people for choosing to act independently?
The organisation was based on the belief that there were individuals willing to let a group of youthful amateurs on to their land
“The newer cohort is the most knowledgeable ecologically that there’s historically,” states the group's co-director, a key figure. They are also “the highly invested in the problems, and have played the minimal role to their origin, and, then, are also going to suffer the greatest as a outcome.”
Change of the Property
Today, the group is expanding across the Britain – and this location planted the seed, in multiple ways. “It’s the initial project, and the place we created our network,” says a founding member, as she provides a overview of the expansive property. “This used to be multiple separate areas,” she comments, as we move through tall vegetation filled with bushes, hemmed by forest. “The main visual change is that we’ve removed all the fencing, a significant length of it, to create the impression like a unified area.” In the recent season, they donned hazmat suits and cleared masses of invasive plants, an non-native plant that can burn the body. “We’ve planted numerous of natural barriers,” explains Easton. “But the key action is we’ve just let it breathe for a brief period. We’ve reduced a lot of livestock impact and observed what’s sprung up.”
Bushes and hedgerows are a excellent nightingale environment, she explains, but today they’re managing some of the brambles to create a more range of habitats and to connect different sections of the site. Fresh plantings will take much more time to take root, but young trees from the adjacent trees are already taking root in the fields; the group have been placing barriers to safeguard them from wildlife.
Wildlife Comes Back in Abundance
There's more than the nightingales – animals is returning in large numbers. This year they’ve spotted reptiles, creatures, nocturnal mammals and bugs, says another co-director, as he lifts up one of their reptile mats (such as a mat over a depression in the soil). “You find snakes and animals residing under there, but it’s possibly a bit cold for them now.” Organic beehives, built using hollowed-out sections of tree trunk and buzzing with pollinators, are strapped to some of the plants. The absence of grazing horses has given invertebrates space to thrive in the overgrown areas. When they came to this season, states the director, “I’d not ever encountered so numerous butterflies. There were just clouds of them. We were saying, ‘What is happening?’”
Origins of the Initiative
The initial participants – Bennett, Durant, Easton and additional members – formed as youth, pursuing or expressing an passion in ecology. In the recent past, the climate experts was predicting that the safe limit of one and a half degrees of warming was seeming impossible, Greta Thunberg was spearheading the school strikes for eco-awareness, and activist another voice was addressing young people feeling “environmental stress”. It was also the time of Isabella Tree’s work, about nature recovery, on how they transformed the Knepp Estate from a failing dairy farm into a flourishing natural habitat. “We were super-inspired by the case study, but what could be the function for youth?” says Easton. “So we created a website and called loads of wildlife trusts and were asking, ‘Do you occasionally get your landowners seeking to do something and you lack capacity?’”
Jack explains the story: “Our complete organisation was fundamentally premised on the belief that there were individuals who were ready to allow a group of young amateurs on to their land without strict rules, to take fairly massive choices that would affect land value
