The richly complex melody of the nightingale is a scarce presence in the UK these days, but not at Maple Farm. Back in 2020, a single nightingale could be noticed at this remote place in the countryside of Surrey; this summer, they were everywhere. “We were listening to them calling all night, from five different territories,” says Meg Cookson, lead ecologist for the youth rewilding group. A band of Youngwilders were camping out at the site, but the nightingales were so loud, “we stayed awake all night,” remarks Layla Mapemba. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so incredible.” An expert from the local conservation group came to help them trap and mark one of the songbirds the next morning, she remembers: “He’d never touched a songbird in his care before. He was emotional.”
Ecological Restoration Speeds Up at the Surrey Site
Nature recovery is by its very essence a slow process, but at this site at Maple Farm, after merely a short period, the outcomes are already visible, and hearable. The land used to be a haven for animals. Currently it’s a model for the Youngwilders’ goal: to accelerate habitat revival, in one of the most nature-depleted regions in the planet, and to connect youth (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often denied access to, and a climate crisis they are often unable to stop. Global heating continues, tree clearing damages wildlife homes, and one more Cop summit draws to a disappointing conclusion in the host country – so what person could blame youth for choosing to act independently?
Our project was founded on the notion that there were landowners willing to allow a collection of young amateurs on to their estate
“The newer cohort is the most informed in terms of nature that there’s ever been,” explains the group's co-director, one organizer. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the challenges, and have played the minimal role to their origin, and, then, are also going to be affected the greatest as a result.”
Change of the Property
Now, the organisation is expanding across the United Kingdom – and Maple Farm was the beginning, in multiple ways. “It’s where we started, and the place we created our community,” explains another co-director, as she gives a tour of the 12-hectare site. “This used to be multiple separate areas,” she comments, as we stroll through long grass filled with bushes, hemmed by forest. “The key visual change is that we’ve eliminated all the fencing, 1.2km of it, to create the impression like a single environment.” In the warmer months, they donned hazmat suits and removed large amounts of harmful weeds, an aggressive flora that can irritate the flesh. “We’ve introduced many of natural barriers,” explains she. “But the key action is we’ve just given it space for a brief period. We’ve eliminated a large part of livestock impact and noticed what’s emerged.”
Low scrub and shrub lines are a excellent songbird home, she says, although now they’re managing some of the thorny plants to create a more diversity of habitats and to connect different sections of the land. Young saplings will take much more time to grow, but young trees from the nearby woodland are already growing in the open areas; the group have been setting up protectors to protect them from wildlife.
Animals Returns in Droves
In addition to the songbirds – wildlife is returning in abundance. Lately they’ve spotted reptiles, legless lizards, flyers and bugs, says another co-director, as he raises one of their reptile mats (like a doormat over a indentation in the soil). “You discover snakes and things hiding under there, but it’s probably a bit chilly for them now.” Natural homes, made from empty sections of timber and active with insects, are attached to some of the trees. The lack of livestock has provided small creatures opportunity to flourish in the meadows. When they came to this time, states the director, “I’d never encountered so numerous lepidoptera. There were just swarms of them. We were wondering, ‘What is occurring?’”
Inception of the Project
The first Youngwilders – Noah, Jack, Molly and two others – formed as learners, studying or expressing an passion in nature. In that year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was indicating that the target of 1.5C of warming was looking impossible, a prominent figure was spearheading the demonstrations for eco-awareness, and campaigner another voice was discussing youth experiencing “eco-worry”. It was also the time of a writer's publication, on rewilding, on how she and her husband transformed the Knepp Estate from a unsuccessful farm into a thriving ecosystem. “We were highly motivated by the Knepp story, but what was the role for youth?” says Molly. “So we created a website and contacted loads of wildlife trusts and were like, ‘Do you occasionally get your property owners wanting to do something and you don’t have resources?’”
Jack continues the account: “Our whole project was fundamentally based on the belief that there were individuals who were willing to let a group of youthful amateurs on to their land indiscriminately, to take fairly massive choices that would impact land value
