The beautifully intricate call of the nightingale is a scarce presence in the UK today, but not at Maple Farm. Back in 2020, a single nightingale could be noticed at this secluded location in the countryside of Surrey; this summer, they were everywhere. “We were hearing them chirping all night, from several zones,” explains Meg Cookson, chief environmental expert for the Youngwilders. A group of participants were residing temporarily at the property, but the nightingales were so boisterous, “we stayed awake all night,” says a project coordinator. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so incredible.” An specialist from the local conservation group came to help them trap and mark one of the songbirds the next morning, she recalls: “He’d never touched a nightingale in his possession before. He was emotional.”
Habitat Revival Accelerates at the Surrey Site
Nature recovery is by nature a lengthy business, but in this place at Maple Farm, after only four years, the changes are already apparent, and noticeable. The property used to be a sanctuary for horses. Today it’s a showpiece for the youth-led goal: to accelerate habitat revival, in one of the most nature-depleted countries in the planet, and to engage the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often excluded from, and a climate crisis they are often unable to stop. Global heating advances, deforestation destroys ecosystems, and one more Cop summit draws to a frustrating outcome in Brazil – so what person could blame young people for wanting to initiate change themselves?
The initiative was premised on the idea that there were people willing to let a group of youthful amateurs on to their estate
“The newer cohort is the best educated environmentally that there’s historically,” says the group's co-director, Jack Durant. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the challenges, and have played the minimal role to their causing, and, then, are also going to be affected most as a result.”
Transformation of the Site
Today, the organisation is growing across the UK – and the original site started it all, in all respects. “It’s where we started, and the place we built our community,” says a founding member, as she gives a walkthrough of the expansive site. “This used to be divided plots,” she states, as we stroll through overgrown meadows filled with low scrub, hemmed by forest. “The primary visual transformation is that we’ve removed all the barriers, a significant length of it, to create the impression like a unified area.” In the warmer months, they wore special clothing and cleared significant quantities of harmful weeds, an invasive species that can burn the body. “We’ve planted many of natural barriers,” says she. “But the main thing is we’ve just let it breathe for a little bit. We’ve removed a large part of livestock impact and seen what’s sprung up.”
Low scrub and natural fences are a ideal songbird habitat, she comments, however now they’re managing some of the wild growth to develop a greater variety of ecosystems and to connect different sections of the site. New trees will take considerably longer to establish, but young trees from the adjacent woodland are already establishing themselves in the meadows; the crew have been placing protectors to safeguard them from grazing deer.
Nature Returns in Droves
There's more than the songbirds – fauna is coming back in abundance. This year they’ve spotted serpents, creatures, nocturnal mammals and bugs, says another co-director, as he lifts up one of their reptile mats (like a cover over a indentation in the ground). “You discover snakes and wildlife hiding under there, but it’s likely a somewhat chilly for them now.” Wild homes, built using hollowed-out parts of timber and active with pollinators, are attached to some of the plants. The removal of animals has allowed invertebrates room to flourish in the long grass. When they came to this season, comments he, “I’d not ever encountered so countless lepidoptera. There were just swarms of them. We were like, ‘What is happening?’”
Beginnings of the Movement
The initial participants – Noah, Jack, Molly and two others – united as youth, focusing on or having an passion in nature. In the recent past, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was forecasting that the target of 1.5C of warming was appearing unachievable, a prominent figure was guiding the demonstrations for environmental action, and activist Clover Hogan was addressing youth experiencing “climate anxiety”. It was also the period of Isabella Tree’s publication, on rewilding, on how they changed the Knepp Estate from a struggling dairy farm into a successful ecosystem. “We were deeply influenced by the Knepp story, but what was the function for the next generation?” says Easton. “So we created a online presence and called numerous of conservation groups and were like, ‘Do you ever get your estate holders wishing to do something and you are short on capacity?’”
Durant continues the account: “Our entire project was basically premised on the idea that there were landowners who were prepared to permit a bunch of youthful idiots on to their property without strict rules, to make major choices that would impact land value
