The richly complex melody of the songbird is a uncommon sound in England these days, yet not at Maple Farm. Previously, a single nightingale could be noticed at this remote spot in the countryside of Surrey; lately, they were all around. “We were listening to them chirping all night, from several zones,” notes Meg Cookson, lead ecologist for the youth rewilding group. A group of Youngwilders were staying overnight at the location, but the nightingales were so loud, “we stayed awake all night,” comments an engagement lead. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so cool.” An expert from the regional nature organization came to help them trap and mark one of the nightingales the next morning, she recalls: “He’d never handled a nightingale in his hands before. He was crying.”
Ecological Restoration Speeds Up at Maple Farm
Nature recovery is by nature a gradual process, but at this site at the farm, after only several seasons, the changes are already evident, and hearable. The property was once a sanctuary for animals. Now it’s a showpiece for the Youngwilders’ purpose: to speed up ecological restoration, in one of the biodiversity-poor regions in the world, and to engage young people (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often shut out of, and a climate crisis they are often ineffectual to prevent. Rising temperatures advances, deforestation damages natural habitats, and one more climate conference comes to a frustrating end in Brazil – so who could blame young people for wanting to initiate change themselves?
The organisation was founded on the belief that there were people willing to allow a group of youthful enthusiasts on to their estate
“The youth is the most informed in terms of nature that there’s ever been,” explains the group's co-director, Jack Durant. They are also “the deeply concerned in the challenges, and have played the smallest part to their creation, and, then, are also going to suffer most as a consequence.”
Change of the Landscape
Currently, the organisation is expanding across the UK – and Maple Farm started it all, in multiple ways. “It’s the initial project, and where we established our network,” notes Molly Easton, as she offers a overview of the expansive site. “This was previously multiple separate areas,” she says, as we move through long grass filled with bushes, surrounded by established trees. “The main visible difference is that we’ve removed all the barriers, 1.2km of it, to give the sense like a single landscape.” In the summer, they used hazmat suits and cleared significant quantities of giant hogweed, an invasive species that can burn the skin. “We’ve planted numerous of natural barriers,” notes Easton. “But the primary focus is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a little bit. We’ve eliminated a large part of livestock impact and seen what’s sprung up.”
Low scrub and shrub lines are a perfect songbird habitat, she comments, but today they’re trimming some of the thorny plants to establish a increased range of ecosystems and to connect different sections of the property. New trees will take much more time to establish, but young trees from the surrounding woodland are already taking root in the meadows; the team have been setting up barriers to shield them from animals.
Nature Reappears in Droves
It’s not just the songbirds – animals is returning in abundance. Recently they’ve observed grass snakes, creatures, nocturnal mammals and insects, says Noah Bennett, as he raises one of their survey equipment (similar to a cover over a indentation in the soil). “You find reptiles and animals residing under there, but it’s possibly a slightly cold for them now.” Natural homes, made from empty sections of timber and buzzing with pollinators, are strapped to some of the woodland. The lack of livestock has given small creatures space to prosper in the overgrown areas. When they visited this time, says the director, “I’d not ever encountered so countless lepidoptera. There were just swarms of them. We were wondering, ‘What is happening?’”
Inception of the Project
The original founders – Bennett, Durant, Molly and more individuals – united as students, pursuing or sharing an interest in ecology. In that year, the IPCC was predicting that the safe limit of 1.5C of climate change was appearing unachievable, a prominent figure was spearheading the demonstrations for eco-awareness, and advocate another voice was addressing the generation feeling “environmental stress”. It was also the era of a writer's book, Wilding, on how they transformed the Knepp Estate from a failing agricultural business into a flourishing wildlife haven. “We were highly motivated by the example, but what was the part for young people?” asks Easton. “So we made a website and contacted many of conservation groups and were asking, ‘Do you occasionally get your estate holders wishing to take action and you are short on capacity?’”
Jack explains the account: “Our entire organisation was fundamentally founded on the belief that there were people who were ready to allow a collection of youthful amateurs on to their property without strict rules, to decide on significant choices that would impact land value
