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The beautifully intricate song of the nightingale is a scarce occurrence in the UK today, however it's different at the Surrey site. Previously, a solitary bird could be heard at this secluded spot in the countryside of Surrey; lately, they were all around. “We were hearing them chirping all night, from five different territories,” explains Meg Cookson, chief environmental expert for the Youngwilders. A team of participants were residing temporarily at the site, but the nightingales were so noisy, “we stayed awake all night,” remarks Layla Mapemba. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so cool.” An expert from the regional nature organization came to help them net and ring one of the birds the next morning, she recalls: “He’d never held a songbird in his possession before. He was teary.”

Habitat Revival Accelerates at the Surrey Site

Nature recovery is by definition a slow endeavor, but in this place at Maple Farm, after just a short period, the results are already apparent, and noticeable. The land was once a retirement home for equines. Currently it’s a model for the Youngwilders’ mission: to speed up nature recovery, in one of the most nature-depleted nations in the world, and to engage youth (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often excluded from, and a global warming issue they are often unable to stop. Climate change continues, habitat loss damages wildlife homes, and yet another international meeting draws to a frustrating end in the host country – so who could criticize youth for choosing to act independently?

Our organisation was premised on the notion that there were people willing to permit a bunch of young amateurs on to their property

“The newer cohort is the best educated environmentally that there’s previously,” explains the group's leader, Jack Durant. They are also “the highly invested in the challenges, and have added the minimal role to their origin, and, then, are also going to be affected most as a result.”

Change of the Landscape

Currently, the organisation is taking root across the UK – and Maple Farm planted the seed, in multiple ways. “It’s the initial project, and where we built our network,” notes a founding member, as she offers a walkthrough of the expansive land. “This used to be six different fields,” she says, as we stroll through tall vegetation featuring bushes, surrounded by forest. “The primary visual change is that we’ve removed all the barriers, over a kilometer of it, to create the impression like a unified area.” In the summer, they donned special clothing and eradicated masses of invasive plants, an non-native plant that can burn the flesh. “We’ve introduced loads of hedgerows,” explains Easton. “But the main thing is we’ve just let it breathe for a little bit. We’ve removed a large part of animal feeding and seen what’s emerged.”

Low scrub and hedgerows are a excellent nightingale habitat, she explains, but currently they’re cutting back some of the wild growth to develop a more variety of habitats and to link up separate areas of the site. New trees will take much more time to take root, but young trees from the surrounding trees are already establishing themselves in the meadows; the group have been placing barriers to protect them from animals.

Animals Comes Back in Abundance

In addition to the songbirds – animals is coming back in droves. Recently they’ve seen serpents, legless lizards, bats and bugs, notes another co-director, as he uncovers one of their reptile mats (similar to a doormat over a small hollow in the ground). “You find reptiles and things hiding under there, but it’s possibly a somewhat cold for them now.” Organic nests, made from carved pieces of tree trunk and humming with wild bees, are strapped to some of the trees. The absence of livestock has provided invertebrates space to thrive in the long grass. When they explored this summer, says the director, “I’d never observed so countless butterflies. There were just clouds of them. We were saying, ‘What is happening?’”

Beginnings of the Movement

The first founders – Bennett, Jack, Easton and two others – came together as youth, pursuing or having an interest in environmental science. In that year, the climate experts was forecasting that the target of one and a half degrees of global heating was looking out of reach, Greta Thunberg was leading the school strikes for eco-awareness, and advocate a speaker was discussing young people suffering from “eco-worry”. It was also the era of Isabella Tree’s book, on rewilding, on how the authors transformed the a Sussex location from a failing farm into a thriving wildlife haven. “We were highly motivated by the Knepp story, but what was the function for youth?” says Molly. “So we created a platform and called many of environmental organizations and were asking, ‘Do you ever get your landowners wanting to take action and you don’t have resources?’”

Durant continues the narrative: “Our whole project was basically based on the belief that there were people who were ready to let a bunch of young idiots on to their property without strict rules, to decide on significant decisions that would affect land value