That manically melodic call of the nightingale is a scarce presence in the UK nowadays, yet it's different at Maple Farm. Back in 2020, a solitary nightingale could be noticed at this remote place in the countryside of Surrey; recently, they were all around. “We were listening to them chirping all night, from multiple areas,” notes Meg Cookson, chief environmental expert for the youth rewilding group. A team of Youngwilders were residing temporarily at the site, but the nightingales were so boisterous, “we stayed awake all night,” says an engagement lead. “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 held a songbird in his hands before. He was emotional.”
Ecological Restoration Accelerates at Maple Farm
Ecological restoration is by its very essence a slow business, but in this place at the farm, after only four years, the outcomes are already evident, and noticeable. The farm was once a retirement home for animals. Currently it’s a model for the Youngwilders’ purpose: to speed up habitat revival, in one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, and to connect youth (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often denied access to, and a global warming issue they are often powerless to prevent. Climate change continues, deforestation damages natural habitats, and one more Cop summit ends with a disappointing outcome in abroad – so who could blame youth for choosing to initiate change themselves?
The initiative was founded on the belief that there were individuals ready to allow a collection of youthful amateurs on to their land
“The younger generation is the best educated ecologically that there’s previously,” says the Youngwilders’ founder, Jack Durant. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the problems, and have contributed the minimal role to their origin, and, then, are also going to be affected the greatest as a result.”
Transformation of the Property
Today, the organisation is expanding across the UK – and the original site was the beginning, in every sense. “It’s where we started, and where we created our connections,” explains another co-director, as she offers a tour of the 30-acre land. “This was previously divided plots,” she comments, as we walk through long grass dotted with bushes, hemmed by established trees. “The key noticeable transformation is that we’ve taken out all the enclosures, a significant length of it, to make it feel like a unified environment.” In the warmer months, they used hazmat suits and cleared large amounts of giant hogweed, an invasive species that can burn the body. “We’ve planted many of bush lines,” explains she. “But the primary focus is we’ve just let it breathe for a little bit. We’ve eliminated a large part of grazing pressure and noticed what’s sprung up.”
Underbrush and natural fences are a ideal songbird environment, she says, but now they’re trimming some of the wild growth to develop a greater variety of environments and to connect separate areas of the property. Fresh plantings will take much more time to take root, but new growth from the nearby trees are already growing in the fields; the team have been setting up barriers to safeguard them from wildlife.
Wildlife Returns in Droves
In addition to the nightingales – animals is returning in large numbers. This year they’ve observed serpents, slowworms, bats and invertebrates, explains a team member, as he uncovers one of their reptile mats (such as a doormat over a small hollow in the earth). “You get snakes and things hiding under there, but it’s possibly a somewhat cold for them now.” Organic beehives, built using hollowed-out parts of tree trunk and buzzing with insects, are fixed to some of the plants. The absence of animals has provided small creatures space to flourish in the meadows. When they visited this summer, says Bennett, “I’d not ever encountered so numerous butterflies. There were just swarms of them. We were like, ‘What is occurring?’”
Inception of the Project
The original founders – Bennett, Durant, Easton and two others – formed as students, pursuing or sharing an interest in ecology. In 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was predicting that the target of one and a half degrees of climate change was seeming unachievable, Greta Thunberg was guiding the school strikes for climate movement, and advocate Clover Hogan was discussing the generation feeling “eco-worry”. It was also the time of a writer's work, Wilding, on how they revitalized the a nearby property from a failing dairy farm into a successful ecosystem. “We were super-inspired by the Knepp story, but what was the role for the next generation?” asks Easton. “So we made a online presence and rang up loads of environmental organizations and were asking, ‘Do you occasionally get your estate holders wishing to make changes and you lack time?’”
Jack explains the narrative: “Our whole organisation was essentially founded on the idea that there were people who were willing to permit a bunch of young idiots on to their estate freely, to take significant choices that would change land value
