The richly complex song of the nightingale is a uncommon occurrence in England these days, yet it's different at the Surrey site. Back in 2020, a solitary nightingale could be detected at this hidden spot in rural Surrey; recently, they were everywhere. “We were hearing them chirping all night, from several zones,” notes one ecologist, chief environmental expert for the youth rewilding group. A team of volunteers were staying overnight at the site, yet the nightingales were so boisterous, “we were unable to rest all night,” says Layla Mapemba. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so cool.” An expert from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them net and ring one of the songbirds the next morning, Cookson states: “He’d never handled a nightingale in his care before. He was crying.”
Rewilding Progresses at the Surrey Site
Ecological restoration is by nature a lengthy business, but in this place at this property, after just several seasons, the outcomes are already evident, and noticeable. The land used to be a sanctuary for animals. Now it’s a example for the Youngwilders’ mission: to speed up ecological restoration, in one of the biodiversity-poor nations in the globe, and to engage youth (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often shut out of, and a climate crisis they are often powerless to stop. Rising temperatures continues, deforestation destroys wildlife homes, and yet another Cop summit ends with a disappointing conclusion in Brazil – so what person could criticize young people for wanting to act independently?
Our organisation was premised on the belief that there were people willing to let a bunch of youthful enthusiasts on to their estate
“The youth is the best educated in terms of nature that there’s ever been,” explains the group's founder, one organizer. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the challenges, and have added the least to their causing, and, then, are also going to suffer the worst as a outcome.”
Transformation of the Property
Now, the group is growing across the United Kingdom – and this location planted the seed, in multiple ways. “It’s the initial project, and where we established our community,” says another co-director, as she provides a tour of the 12-hectare site. “This once consisted of multiple separate areas,” she says, as we move through long grass filled with low scrub, hemmed by established trees. “The primary visible transformation is that we’ve removed all the enclosures, a significant length of it, to give the sense like a single landscape.” In the summer, they used hazmat suits and cleared masses of giant hogweed, an aggressive flora that can irritate the flesh. “We’ve planted many of bush lines,” says the director. “But the primary focus is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a little bit. We’ve reduced a large part of livestock impact and noticed what’s come up.”
Low scrub and shrub lines are a perfect nightingale habitat, she explains, although today they’re cutting back some of the thorny plants to create a increased variety of habitats and to join separate areas of the site. Fresh plantings will take considerably longer to take root, but saplings from the adjacent oaks are already growing in the open areas; the group have been setting up guards to safeguard them from grazing deer.
Nature Reappears in Large Numbers
It’s not just the nightingales – fauna is coming back in abundance. This year they’ve seen reptiles, creatures, flyers and invertebrates, says another co-director, as he lifts up one of their reptile mats (similar to a mat over a depression in the ground). “You discover creatures and things hiding under there, but it’s probably a slightly cool for them now.” Natural homes, constructed from carved sections of timber and buzzing with pollinators, are strapped to some of the plants. The lack of livestock has provided insects space to prosper in the overgrown areas. When they visited this season, states Bennett, “I’d not once seen so countless lepidoptera. There were just masses of them. We were saying, ‘What is going on?’”
Origins of the Movement
The original participants – Bennett, Jack, Easton and two others – formed as youth, focusing on or having an passion in ecology. In that year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was forecasting that the acceptable threshold of 1.5C of climate change was appearing impossible, a prominent figure was leading the youth protests for eco-awareness, and activist another voice was discussing the generation experiencing “environmental stress”. It was also the period of Isabella Tree’s publication, Wilding, on how the authors transformed the a Sussex location from a failing farm into a thriving wildlife haven. “We were highly motivated by the example, but what was the role for the next generation?” questions Easton. “So we created a website and contacted numerous of wildlife trusts and were saying, ‘Do you ever get your landowners wanting to take action and you lack resources?’”
Jack adds the account: “Our whole organisation was essentially premised on the belief that there were people who were prepared to let a group of young idiots on to their estate indiscriminately, to make major decisions that would affect land value
