That richly complex call of the nightingale is a rare occurrence in Britain today, but not at Maple Farm. Back in 2020, a single nightingale could be heard at this secluded spot in rural Surrey; recently, they were all around. “We were hearing them chirping all night, from several zones,” explains a lead scientist, top biologist for the youth rewilding group. A team of participants were residing temporarily at the site, however the nightingales were so boisterous, “we were unable to rest all night,” comments a project coordinator. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so cool.” An expert from the local conservation group came to help them trap and mark one of the birds the next morning, she remembers: “He’d never touched a nightingale in his hands before. He was emotional.”
Rewilding Accelerates at This Location
Rewilding is by definition a slow business, but here at Maple Farm, after only a short period, the outcomes are already visible, and noticeable. The property previously served as a retirement home for animals. Now it’s a showpiece for the Youngwilders’ mission: to hasten ecological restoration, in one of the most nature-depleted nations in the world, and to connect young people (18-30-year-olds) with a environment they are often shut out of, and a environmental emergency they are often unable to stop. Global heating continues, habitat loss destroys natural habitats, and another climate conference draws to a disappointing outcome in Brazil – so what person could criticize youth for wishing to initiate change themselves?
The initiative was premised on the idea that there were people prepared to allow a collection of youthful enthusiasts on to their estate
“The newer cohort is the best educated ecologically that there’s historically,” explains the group's leader, Jack Durant. They are also “the deeply concerned in the problems, and have added the smallest part to their origin, and, then, are also going to experience consequences the worst as a consequence.”
Transformation of the Property
Currently, the organisation is growing across the UK – and the original site started it all, in every sense. “It’s where we started, and where we created our network,” explains another co-director, as she offers a walkthrough of the expansive site. “This used to be multiple separate areas,” she states, as we stroll through long grass filled with low scrub, surrounded by established trees. “The primary noticeable transformation is that we’ve removed all the fencing, over a kilometer of it, to give the sense like a single landscape.” In the summer, they used protective gear and removed masses of giant hogweed, an non-native plant that can irritate the flesh. “We’ve introduced loads of bush lines,” notes she. “But the main thing is we’ve just given it space for a little bit. We’ve eliminated a significant amount of grazing pressure and observed what’s emerged.”
Bushes and shrub lines are a perfect nightingale environment, she says, however currently they’re cutting back some of the wild growth to develop a greater diversity of habitats and to join two parts of the property. New trees will take much more time to establish, but young trees from the surrounding trees are already growing in the fields; the group have been installing protectors to protect them from wildlife.
Wildlife Comes Back in Droves
It’s not just the songbirds – fauna is coming back in abundance. Recently they’ve spotted grass snakes, creatures, bats and invertebrates, explains Noah Bennett, as he raises one of their monitoring tools (like a mat over a small hollow in the soil). “You discover snakes and animals hiding under there, but it’s probably a bit cool for them now.” Organic nests, built using hollowed-out sections of tree trunk and humming with pollinators, are fixed to some of the woodland. The removal of livestock has provided small creatures room to thrive in the meadows. When they visited this time, states he, “I’d not ever observed so many lepidoptera. There were just masses of them. We were saying, ‘What is going on?’”
Beginnings of the Project
The initial participants – Bennett, Jack, Easton and additional members – formed as students, pursuing or expressing an concern in environmental science. In 2019, the climate experts was indicating that the acceptable threshold of 1.5C of climate change was looking impossible, the activist was guiding the demonstrations for environmental action, and advocate a speaker was talking about young people suffering from “eco-worry”. It was also the era of Isabella Tree’s work, Wilding, on how she and her husband changed the Knepp Estate from a unsuccessful farm into a flourishing ecosystem. “We were super-inspired by the case study, but what could be the part for young people?” says Molly. “So we developed a online presence and rang up numerous of wildlife trusts and were asking, ‘Do you occasionally get your landowners seeking to take action and you lack time?’”
Durant continues the narrative: “Our whole project was basically based on the idea that there were landowners who were willing to permit a group of youthful idiots on to their property indiscriminately, to make significant decisions that would impact land value
