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That richly complex song of the nightingale is a uncommon sound in England nowadays, however not at the Surrey site. Back in 2020, a solitary bird could be noticed at this remote location in rural Surrey; lately, they were in multiple locations. “We were listening to them chirping all night, from several zones,” notes Meg Cookson, top biologist for the Youngwilders. A band of participants were residing temporarily at the location, but the nightingales were so boisterous, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” says an engagement lead. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so amazing.” An specialist from the local conservation group came to help them capture and tag one of the nightingales the next morning, Cookson states: “He’d never touched a nightingale in his possession before. He was emotional.”

Ecological Restoration Speeds Up at This Location

Rewilding is by its very essence a lengthy business, but here at this property, after merely several seasons, the results are already apparent, and audible. The land previously served as a retirement home for horses. Now it’s a model for the Youngwilders’ goal: to hasten 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 denied access to, and a global warming issue they are often unable to halt. Global heating advances, deforestation damages ecosystems, and yet another Cop summit comes to a frustrating end in abroad – so who could criticize youth for choosing to act independently?

The initiative was premised on the belief that there were landowners willing to allow a bunch of youthful amateurs on to their estate

“The youth is the most informed environmentally that there’s historically,” says the Youngwilders’ founder, Jack Durant. They are also “the deeply concerned in the problems, and have played the least to their creation, and, then, are also going to be affected the greatest as a consequence.”

Revitalization of the Landscape

Today, the group is expanding across the UK – and this location planted the seed, in every sense. “It’s our origin point, and where we established our community,” says another co-director, as she provides a walkthrough of the 12-hectare site. “This was previously six different fields,” she says, as we stroll through long grass dotted with low scrub, bordered by established trees. “The main visual transformation is that we’ve removed all the barriers, over a kilometer of it, to give the sense like one area.” In the summer, they donned protective gear and removed significant quantities of harmful weeds, an invasive species that can burn the skin. “We’ve established many of hedgerows,” notes the director. “But the primary focus is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a little bit. We’ve removed a large part of animal feeding and seen what’s sprung up.”

Underbrush and hedgerows are a ideal songbird home, she explains, however currently they’re managing some of the wild growth to create a greater range of habitats and to link up separate areas of the property. Fresh plantings will take considerably longer to take root, but new growth from the adjacent trees are already growing in the open areas; the group have been placing barriers to shield them from wildlife.

Animals Reappears in Abundance

It’s not just the nightingales – animals is reappearing in large numbers. Lately they’ve seen grass snakes, creatures, bats and insects, explains another co-director, as he lifts up one of their monitoring tools (like a doormat over a indentation in the soil). “You find creatures and animals residing under there, but it’s likely a somewhat cold for them now.” Organic nests, built using empty pieces of wood and active with wild bees, are strapped to some of the woodland. The lack of animals has given invertebrates opportunity to flourish in the meadows. When they visited this time, states Bennett, “I’d not ever encountered so many butterflies. There were just swarms of them. We were wondering, ‘What is happening?’”

Origins of the Project

The original participants – Bennett, Jack, Easton and two others – came together as youth, focusing on or having an interest in nature. In the recent past, the IPCC was forecasting that the target of 1.5C of warming was seeming unachievable, a prominent figure was guiding the youth protests for environmental action, and activist a speaker was talking about the generation experiencing “climate anxiety”. It was also the time of Isabella Tree’s publication, on rewilding, on how the authors revitalized the Knepp Estate from a failing farm into a flourishing natural habitat. “We were super-inspired by the case study, but what was the role for youth?” asks Easton. “So we developed a website and contacted loads of wildlife trusts and were like, ‘Do you occasionally get your property owners wishing to take action and you are short on resources?’”

Jack adds the narrative: “Our complete project was essentially premised on the idea that there were people who were willing to let a bunch of young enthusiasts on to their land freely, to make major choices that would change land value