That beautifully intricate song of the nightingale is a uncommon occurrence in England these days, yet not at the Surrey site. Back in 2020, a lone bird could be detected at this hidden location in rural Surrey; recently, they were all around. “We were hearing them singing all night, from multiple areas,” explains a lead scientist, top biologist for the youth rewilding group. A band of Youngwilders were staying overnight at the location, but the nightingales were so noisy, “we stayed awake all night,” remarks a project coordinator. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so cool.” An expert from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them trap and mark one of the nightingales the next morning, she recalls: “He’d never handled a songbird in his care before. He was crying.”
Habitat Revival Accelerates at This Location
Rewilding is by definition a slow process, but at this site at the farm, after just several seasons, the outcomes are already evident, and noticeable. The farm used to be a sanctuary for equines. Now it’s a showpiece for the youth-led goal: to accelerate habitat revival, in one of the most nature-depleted countries in the globe, and to link the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often shut out of, and a climate crisis they are often unable to stop. Global heating advances, deforestation damages natural habitats, and yet another climate conference draws to a unsatisfactory outcome in the host country – so who could fault youth for choosing to act independently?
Our project was founded on the belief that there were individuals prepared to allow a group of youthful amateurs on to their estate
“The newer cohort is the best educated ecologically that there’s historically,” explains the group's founder, Jack Durant. They are also “the highly invested in the problems, and have played the least to their origin, and, then, are also going to experience consequences the greatest as a consequence.”
Change of the Property
Today, the group is growing across the UK – and this location started it all, in all respects. “It’s the initial project, and the place we created our community,” notes Molly Easton, as she offers a overview of the 30-acre land. “This used to be six different fields,” she comments, as we walk through long grass featuring bushes, surrounded by forest. “The main visible change is that we’ve removed all the barriers, a significant length of it, to give the sense like a single landscape.” In the warmer months, they wore protective gear and removed masses of invasive plants, an aggressive flora that can burn the body. “We’ve established many of bush lines,” notes Easton. “But the primary focus is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a brief period. We’ve eliminated a large part of livestock impact and seen what’s emerged.”
Underbrush and shrub lines are a excellent nightingale home, she says, but currently they’re managing some of the thorny plants to develop a greater variety of ecosystems and to link up different sections of the property. New trees will take a while to take root, but young trees from the adjacent trees are already growing in the open areas; the group have been installing protectors to safeguard them from animals.
Animals Reappears in Abundance
There's more than the nightingales – wildlife is coming back in abundance. Recently they’ve seen reptiles, slowworms, bats and insects, explains a team member, as he lifts up one of their reptile mats (similar to a cover over a depression in the earth). “You find snakes and things hiding under there, but it’s probably a somewhat chilly for them now.” Organic homes, made from empty parts of tree trunk and buzzing with pollinators, are fixed to some of the plants. The lack of livestock has provided insects space to prosper in the overgrown areas. When they explored this time, says the director, “I’d never observed so numerous butterflies. There were just clouds of them. We were saying, ‘What is occurring?’”
Beginnings of the Project
The original participants – Noah, Jack, Easton and two others – formed as youth, pursuing or sharing an interest in environmental science. In the recent past, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was indicating that the acceptable threshold of one and a half degrees of warming was looking out of reach, Greta Thunberg was spearheading the school strikes for climate movement, and advocate Clover Hogan was talking about young people suffering from “eco-worry”. It was also the time of Isabella Tree’s publication, on rewilding, on how the authors transformed the a Sussex location from a failing dairy farm into a thriving natural habitat. “We were highly motivated by the case study, but what was the role for the next generation?” questions Molly. “So we made a platform and contacted loads of conservation groups and were like, ‘Do you ever get your estate holders seeking to take action and you lack resources?’”
Jack continues the account: “Our entire project was basically premised on the belief that there were individuals who were prepared to allow a group of young amateurs on to their property indiscriminately, to take fairly massive actions that would affect land value
