That beautifully intricate song of the nightingale is a rare occurrence in England these days, but not at this rural location. Four years ago, a lone bird could be heard at this secluded spot in rural Surrey; this summer, they were all around. “We were listening to them chirping all night, from several zones,” explains Meg Cookson, lead ecologist for the Youngwilders. A group of participants were camping out at the property, but the birds were so loud, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” remarks a project coordinator. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so amazing.” An professional from the regional nature organization came to help them net and ring one of the birds the next morning, the ecologist states: “He’d never held a songbird in his possession before. He was teary.”
Habitat Revival Progresses at This Location
Ecological restoration is by its very essence a lengthy endeavor, but at this site at this property, after merely four years, the results are already evident, and noticeable. The farm previously served as a haven for horses. Now it’s a model for the youth-led purpose: to accelerate ecological restoration, in one of the biodiversity-poor countries in the planet, and to engage young people (18-30-year-olds) with a environment they are often excluded from, and a global warming issue they are often unable to stop. Global heating continues, habitat loss damages wildlife homes, and yet another climate conference ends with a unsatisfactory conclusion in abroad – so what person could fault the younger generation for wishing to act independently?
The initiative was founded on the idea that there were people prepared to let a group of young enthusiasts on to their property
“The younger generation is the best educated environmentally that there’s historically,” explains the Youngwilders’ founder, a key figure. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the issues, and have played the minimal role to their causing, and, then, are also going to suffer most as a outcome.”
Change of the Landscape
Today, the organisation is taking root across the UK – and the original site planted the seed, in multiple ways. “It’s our origin point, and the place we created our network,” notes another co-director, as she gives a tour of the 30-acre land. “This was previously multiple separate areas,” she comments, as we stroll through long grass filled with low scrub, bordered by forest. “The key noticeable difference is that we’ve taken out all the enclosures, over a kilometer of it, to give the sense like a single area.” In the recent season, they wore hazmat suits and cleared large amounts of invasive plants, an aggressive flora that can burn the skin. “We’ve established many of hedgerows,” notes Easton. “But the main thing is we’ve just given it space for a short time. We’ve reduced a significant amount of animal feeding and seen what’s come up.”
Low scrub and natural fences are a excellent songbird environment, she explains, however today they’re trimming some of the brambles to develop a greater range of ecosystems and to link up separate areas of the site. Young saplings will take a while to take root, but new growth from the nearby woodland are already growing in the open areas; the group have been setting up barriers to protect them from animals.
Wildlife Returns in Droves
There's more than the nightingales – wildlife is coming back in droves. Lately they’ve seen reptiles, creatures, flyers and insects, explains a team member, as he raises one of their monitoring tools (similar to a cover over a indentation in the ground). “You discover creatures and wildlife hiding under there, but it’s probably a bit cold for them now.” Wild nests, built using empty parts of wood and humming with wild bees, are attached to some of the trees. The absence of grazing horses has provided small creatures opportunity to thrive in the overgrown areas. When they came to this summer, comments Bennett, “I’d not ever encountered so countless lepidoptera. There were just clouds of them. We were wondering, ‘What is going on?’”
Inception of the Project
The first participants – Bennett, Durant, Easton and additional members – came together as learners, pursuing or having an passion in environmental science. In that year, the IPCC was indicating that the safe limit of one and a half degrees of climate change was looking impossible, Greta Thunberg was leading the youth protests for eco-awareness, and activist another voice was addressing the generation experiencing “environmental stress”. It was also the period of a writer's book, about nature recovery, on how she and her husband revitalized the a nearby property from a failing dairy farm into a flourishing wildlife haven. “We were deeply influenced by the case study, but what was the function for young people?” questions Easton. “So we created a platform and called many of environmental organizations and were asking, ‘Do you occasionally get your estate holders wanting to make changes and you lack time?’”
Durant continues the story: “Our complete organisation was basically founded on the belief that there were landowners who were ready to let a group of young amateurs on to their estate without strict rules, to decide on significant actions that would affect land value
