That richly complex call of the nightingale is a uncommon sound in the UK these days, yet it's different at this rural location. Previously, a solitary nightingale could be detected at this secluded location in the countryside of Surrey; this summer, they were everywhere. “We were hearing them chirping all night, from five different territories,” notes Meg Cookson, chief environmental expert for the Youngwilders. A band of participants were camping out at the site, however the birds were so loud, “we stayed awake all night,” says a project coordinator. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so incredible.” An professional from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them net and ring one of the songbirds the next morning, the ecologist recalls: “He’d never held a songbird in his hands before. He was teary.”
Rewilding Speeds Up at This Location
Rewilding is by definition a gradual process, but in this place at this property, after just four years, the results are already visible, and audible. The land previously served as a sanctuary for equines. Today it’s a showpiece for the Youngwilders’ purpose: to speed up nature recovery, in one of the ecologically impoverished nations in the globe, and to link young people (18-30-year-olds) with a environment they are often shut out of, and a global warming issue they are often powerless to prevent. Global heating advances, habitat loss eliminates ecosystems, and one more climate conference comes to a frustrating end in Brazil – so who could blame youth for choosing to initiate change themselves?
The organisation was founded on the belief that there were people ready to let a collection of young enthusiasts on to their property
“The newer cohort is the most informed environmentally that there’s historically,” explains the Youngwilders’ leader, Jack Durant. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the challenges, and have played the smallest part to their origin, and, then, are also going to suffer most as a result.”
Change of the Property
Today, the organisation is taking root across the United Kingdom – and this location planted the seed, in all respects. “It’s where we started, and where we established our network,” says another co-director, as she offers a tour of the 12-hectare site. “This was previously divided plots,” she says, as we stroll through overgrown meadows filled with shrubs, hemmed by mature woodland. “The key visual difference is that we’ve removed all the fencing, 1.2km of it, to make it feel like one landscape.” In the warmer months, they donned hazmat suits and eradicated large amounts of giant hogweed, an non-native plant that can burn the flesh. “We’ve established loads of hedgerows,” explains the director. “But the key action is we’ve just given it space for a little bit. We’ve removed a lot of livestock impact and seen what’s sprung up.”
Low scrub and shrub lines are a ideal songbird environment, she comments, but currently they’re trimming some of the thorny plants to develop a more range of habitats and to join two parts of the site. Young saplings will take a while to take root, but young trees from the adjacent trees are already growing in the meadows; the team have been installing protectors to shield them from grazing deer.
Animals Returns in Abundance
In addition to the songbirds – animals is reappearing in abundance. This year they’ve spotted serpents, legless lizards, bats and insects, notes a team member, as he raises one of their survey equipment (similar to a cover over a indentation in the soil). “You discover reptiles and things hiding under there, but it’s probably a slightly chilly for them now.” Wild beehives, built using hollowed-out pieces of wood and buzzing with pollinators, are fixed to some of the woodland. The lack of animals has allowed invertebrates opportunity to thrive in the long grass. When they visited this season, says he, “I’d not once seen so countless lepidoptera. There were just clouds of them. We were saying, ‘What is occurring?’”
Beginnings of the Movement
The first Youngwilders – Noah, Durant, Easton and more individuals – united as students, pursuing or expressing an passion in ecology. In that year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was forecasting that the acceptable threshold of one and a half degrees of climate change was looking out of reach, Greta Thunberg was guiding the demonstrations for environmental action, and campaigner another voice was addressing young people experiencing “eco-worry”. It was also the era of the author's publication, about nature recovery, on how she and her husband revitalized the a nearby property from a unsuccessful dairy farm into a flourishing wildlife haven. “We were super-inspired by the example, but what was the part for youth?” asks Easton. “So we created a website and contacted many of conservation groups and were like, ‘Do you ever get your estate holders wanting to make changes and you don’t have capacity?’”
Jack adds the story: “Our complete initiative was fundamentally founded on the belief that there were landowners who were willing to allow a bunch of young enthusiasts on to their land freely, to take significant decisions that would change land value
