That beautifully intricate call of the songbird is a rare sound in England nowadays, but it's different at the Surrey site. Previously, a lone bird could be noticed at this hidden spot in rural Surrey; recently, they were in multiple locations. “We were hearing them calling all night, from multiple areas,” says one ecologist, top biologist for the youth rewilding group. A band of Youngwilders were residing temporarily at the location, but the birds were so boisterous, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” remarks a project coordinator. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so cool.” An professional from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them trap and mark one of the birds the next morning, she states: “He’d never touched a songbird in his care before. He was teary.”
Rewilding Speeds Up at the Surrey Site
Ecological restoration is by its very essence a lengthy business, but at this site at the farm, after merely a short period, the results are already visible, and noticeable. The land previously served as a retirement home for equines. Today it’s a showpiece for the youth-led mission: to hasten nature recovery, in one of the most nature-depleted nations in the planet, and to link the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often denied access to, and a climate crisis they are often unable to halt. Rising temperatures advances, deforestation destroys natural habitats, and yet another international meeting comes to a unsatisfactory outcome in abroad – so who could fault the younger generation for wishing to act independently?
The organisation was founded on the belief that there were individuals prepared to allow a group of young idiots on to their land
“The newer cohort is the best educated ecologically that there’s previously,” says the Youngwilders’ founder, a key figure. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the issues, and have added the smallest part to their causing, and, then, are also going to be affected the greatest as a result.”
Change of the Landscape
Now, the initiative is expanding across the Britain – and the original site was the beginning, in every sense. “It’s the initial project, and where we established our connections,” notes a founding member, as she gives a tour of the expansive property. “This was previously six different fields,” she says, as we walk through long grass filled with shrubs, surrounded by established trees. “The main visible change is that we’ve removed all the barriers, over a kilometer of it, to create the impression like one area.” In the recent season, they used hazmat suits and cleared large amounts of giant hogweed, an aggressive flora that can irritate the body. “We’ve established loads of natural barriers,” explains the director. “But the primary focus is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a brief period. We’ve eliminated a lot of grazing pressure and observed what’s emerged.”
Bushes and shrub lines are a perfect nightingale home, she says, but currently they’re trimming some of the wild growth to develop a more range of habitats and to join two parts of the site. New trees will take much more time to take root, but saplings from the surrounding woodland are already establishing themselves in the open areas; the team have been setting up guards to safeguard them from animals.
Animals Comes Back in Abundance
There's more than the nightingales – wildlife is coming back in abundance. Lately they’ve seen reptiles, slowworms, flyers and insects, explains another co-director, as he uncovers one of their monitoring tools (such as a doormat over a indentation in the ground). “You get creatures and wildlife sheltering under there, but it’s possibly a bit cool for them now.” Natural homes, built using hollowed-out pieces of wood and buzzing with insects, are strapped to some of the plants. The removal of livestock has provided insects room to prosper in the meadows. When they visited this time, states the director, “I’d not ever seen so countless butterflies. There were just masses of them. We were saying, ‘What is happening?’”
Inception of the Movement
The original founders – Bennett, Jack, Easton and more individuals – came together as youth, focusing on or having an concern in environmental science. In 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was indicating that the safe limit of 1.5C of warming was seeming out of reach, Greta Thunberg was guiding the school strikes for climate movement, and advocate another voice was talking about the generation suffering from “climate anxiety”. It was also the period of Isabella Tree’s publication, about nature recovery, on how she and her husband changed the Knepp Estate from a failing agricultural business into a successful wildlife haven. “We were deeply influenced by the Knepp story, but what was the role for young people?” asks Easton. “So we developed a website and contacted loads of conservation groups and were saying, ‘Do you occasionally get your property owners seeking to make changes and you are short on resources?’”
Jack explains the narrative: “Our complete organisation was essentially based on the belief that there were people who were willing to permit a collection of young idiots on to their property freely, to make significant actions that would affect land value
