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The richly complex call of the songbird is a rare presence in the UK today, but it's different at this rural location. Four years ago, a solitary nightingale could be heard at this remote location in rural Surrey; recently, they were in multiple locations. “We were listening to them calling all night, from several zones,” explains Meg Cookson, lead ecologist for the youth rewilding group. A group of participants were staying overnight at the location, yet the birds were so loud, “we stayed awake all night,” remarks an engagement lead. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so incredible.” An expert from the regional nature organization came to help them capture and tag one of the songbirds the next morning, the ecologist remembers: “He’d never held a songbird in his care before. He was emotional.”

Rewilding Speeds Up at the Surrey Site

Ecological restoration is by nature a slow process, but here at this property, after just a short period, the outcomes are already evident, and hearable. The property used to be a retirement home for equines. Now it’s a showpiece for the Youngwilders’ goal: to accelerate ecological restoration, in one of the biodiversity-poor countries in the world, and to engage young people (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often excluded from, and a climate crisis they are often powerless to prevent. Rising temperatures persists, deforestation damages wildlife homes, and yet another Cop summit comes to a frustrating end in Brazil – so what person could criticize young people for wanting to initiate change themselves?

Our initiative was founded on the notion that there were individuals ready to allow a bunch of young enthusiasts on to their land

“The newer cohort is the most informed ecologically that there’s ever been,” states the group's co-director, one organizer. They are also “the highly invested in the problems, and have played the smallest part to their causing, and, then, are also going to experience consequences the greatest as a result.”

Revitalization of the Property

Currently, the group is expanding across the United Kingdom – and the original site started it all, in all respects. “It’s where we started, and the place we built our network,” notes another co-director, as she offers a overview of the 12-hectare property. “This was previously divided plots,” she comments, as we walk through tall vegetation filled with low scrub, bordered by forest. “The key visual change is that we’ve removed all the barriers, 1.2km of it, to make it feel like one area.” In the warmer months, they donned protective gear and cleared significant quantities of harmful weeds, an invasive species that can irritate the body. “We’ve established numerous of natural barriers,” notes she. “But the key action is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a short time. We’ve reduced a lot of livestock impact and seen what’s emerged.”

Bushes and natural fences are a excellent songbird environment, she says, but now they’re managing some of the brambles to establish a more range of ecosystems and to link up two parts of the property. Fresh plantings will take much more time to establish, but young trees from the surrounding oaks are already growing in the open areas; the team have been installing guards to safeguard them from animals.

Animals Returns in Large Numbers

It’s not just the nightingales – wildlife is coming back in abundance. Lately they’ve seen serpents, legless lizards, nocturnal mammals and invertebrates, says Noah Bennett, as he uncovers one of their monitoring tools (like a mat over a small hollow in the earth). “You discover reptiles and things residing under there, but it’s probably a somewhat cold for them now.” Wild homes, built using empty parts of wood and active with insects, are attached to some of the trees. The lack of animals has provided small creatures space to thrive in the meadows. When they came to this season, states the director, “I’d not ever observed so numerous butterflies. There were just clouds of them. We were saying, ‘What is happening?’”

Inception of the Movement

The initial Youngwilders – Noah, Durant, Easton and two others – came together as students, focusing on or having an interest in nature. In 2019, the climate experts was forecasting that the target of one and a half degrees of global heating was appearing out of reach, a prominent figure was leading the school strikes for climate movement, and campaigner a speaker was addressing the generation suffering from “eco-worry”. It was also the time of a writer's book, on rewilding, on how they transformed the a nearby property from a failing dairy farm into a thriving natural habitat. “We were highly motivated by the example, but what was the part for the next generation?” questions Easton. “So we made a online presence and rang up many of conservation groups and were like, ‘Do you sometimes get your landowners seeking to do something and you don’t have resources?’”

Jack explains the story: “Our whole organisation was essentially founded on the notion that there were landowners who were prepared to allow a collection of youthful idiots on to their property indiscriminately, to take fairly massive choices that would affect land value