The richly complex song of the nightingale is a rare presence in England these days, however it's different at Maple Farm. Back in 2020, a solitary nightingale could be noticed at this hidden place in rural Surrey; this summer, they were everywhere. “We were listening to them calling all night, from five different territories,” notes one ecologist, lead ecologist for the Youngwilders. A band of Youngwilders were residing temporarily at the location, but the nightingales were so loud, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” says an engagement lead. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so incredible.” An professional from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them trap and mark one of the nightingales the next morning, Cookson recalls: “He’d never touched a nightingale in his possession before. He was emotional.”
Habitat Revival Speeds Up at Maple Farm
Rewilding is by its very essence a lengthy business, but at this site at the farm, after merely several seasons, the results are already evident, and noticeable. The property was once a haven for horses. Today it’s a showpiece for the youth-led purpose: to speed up habitat revival, in one of the biodiversity-poor countries in the globe, and to link the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often excluded from, and a global warming issue they are often unable to stop. Climate change advances, habitat loss eliminates natural habitats, and yet another climate conference comes to a unsatisfactory end in Brazil – so what person could criticize young people for wishing to take matters into their own hands?
The project was based on the belief that there were individuals prepared to permit a collection of young amateurs on to their property
“The younger generation is the best educated ecologically that there’s historically,” states the Youngwilders’ leader, one organizer. They are also “the highly invested in the challenges, and have played the smallest part to their creation, and, then, are also going to suffer the worst as a consequence.”
Transformation of the Landscape
Today, the group is expanding across the United Kingdom – and Maple Farm started it all, in multiple ways. “It’s the initial project, and the place we built our connections,” notes Molly Easton, as she offers a overview of the 30-acre property. “This was previously multiple separate areas,” she says, as we move through overgrown meadows dotted with low scrub, surrounded by established trees. “The primary visible change is that we’ve taken out all the enclosures, a significant length of it, to give the sense like a single landscape.” In the summer, they wore hazmat suits and cleared large amounts of harmful weeds, an invasive species that can harm the body. “We’ve established many of hedgerows,” explains Easton. “But the key action is we’ve just let it breathe for a little bit. We’ve eliminated a significant amount of animal feeding and observed what’s sprung up.”
Bushes and hedgerows are a ideal songbird home, she comments, however currently they’re cutting back some of the wild growth to develop a more diversity of habitats and to link up separate areas of the property. Fresh plantings will take much more time to grow, but young trees from the adjacent oaks are already establishing themselves in the meadows; the group have been setting up guards to protect them from animals.
Wildlife Reappears in Droves
In addition to the nightingales – wildlife is coming back in abundance. This year they’ve seen grass snakes, creatures, flyers and invertebrates, notes Noah Bennett, as he raises one of their monitoring tools (like a cover over a small hollow in the earth). “You discover reptiles and animals sheltering under there, but it’s probably a bit cool for them now.” Natural nests, constructed from hollowed-out sections of timber and active with wild bees, are fixed to some of the trees. The absence of animals has provided invertebrates room to thrive in the long grass. When they visited this season, comments he, “I’d not once seen so many butterflies. There were just masses of them. We were saying, ‘What is happening?’”
Inception of the Project
The initial founders – Noah, Durant, Easton and more individuals – formed as youth, pursuing or expressing an concern in ecology. In the recent past, the IPCC was indicating that the acceptable threshold of 1.5C of warming was appearing out of reach, Greta Thunberg was guiding the youth protests for eco-awareness, and campaigner Clover Hogan was addressing young people feeling “eco-worry”. It was also the era of Isabella Tree’s book, Wilding, on how they changed the a nearby property from a failing dairy farm into a thriving ecosystem. “We were super-inspired by the Knepp story, but what could be the part for youth?” says Molly. “So we created a platform and contacted loads of conservation groups and were like, ‘Do you ever get your landowners wishing to do something and you are short on resources?’”
Durant adds the story: “Our complete project was basically based on the notion that there were individuals who were ready to permit a group of young idiots on to their estate freely, to make significant choices that would impact land value
